Monday, October 28, 2019

#MicroblogMondays: Score!!

Getting tickets for the upcoming Toronto visit of the touring company of "Hamilton" was an exercise in nerves and patience. I'm just very glad I didn't have to take my blood pressure during the process...! 

First dibs on the tickets went to Mirvish company season ticket subscribers. I know some people who bought season tickets well over a year ago, specifically so they'd be guaranteed their preferred seats again for THIS year, and thus guaranteed access to "Hamilton" tickets. I love live theatre, but season tickets (and I like to get good seats when I go to the theatre, if I can) are pretty expensive, and obviously some productions interest me more than others.

So I passed on that, but got my name on the Mirvish email list. A block of tickets specifically for list subscribers went on sale this past weekend (American Express cardholders got their shot at the tickets on Sunday, and sales to the general public began today) and, as per the emailed instructions, I double-checked my log-in and account information in advance, and then checked into the virtual waiting room before 10 a.m. on Saturday.  When 10 a.m. rolled around, we were all randomly placed into a virtual queue, waiting our turn for the chance to buy tickets (limit of 4 per person).

At 10 a.m., I was #5382 in line, with an estimated wait time of more than an hour. (I posted a screen shot on social media... dh's cousin's daughter told me I was 20,000 ahead of her!! Yikes!  I felt a little less sorry for myself after that...!) I figured I had time to take a shower, so I did (cellphone close at hand!). An hour later, the line ahead of me was down to 3,300 people... and my ETA was just under an hour. I started to feel hopeful.

My turn finally came up around the 1.5 hour mark -- which was really not that bad, I thought. Each page I clicked on loaded soooooooo slowly, though... I only had 20 minutes to choose my dates & seats, and then 10 minutes to arrange payment. I just had to grit my teeth and wait and resist the urge to click & reclick or (suicide!!) try to reload the page.

The available dates on the first page that loaded were all in February... and most had a red or yellow light beside them (no tickets/limited availability).  My understanding was that the best availability would be later in the run (April/May).... so I clicked on page 6 (the last one listed) to load to see where that would take me. It brought up some dates in May (toward the end of the run), and I chose a matinee performance with a "green light" beside it ( = good seats still available).  I was NOT going to pay top price ($499 per seat!!) but I did get tickets (still pricey, but somewhat more reasonable) in the first row of the balcony/mezzanine, left-hand side of the stage. *Should* be pretty good. :)  I breathed a deep sigh of relief as I finally printed off my confirmation screen and shared the "I scored #Hamilton tickets" meme on my Instagram & Facebook, lol. (Personally, I think it should have said something more like "I survived the Hamilton tickets purchase process," lol.)

Later, scanning Twitter & the news headlines, I realized that I'd been pretty lucky (for once in my life in buying tickets!)... lots of people reporting that the site crashed or loaded so slowly that they timed out & had to go to the back of the line and start all over again. (Dh's cousin's daughter, who was 20,000 in line behind me, did get tickets, after 5 hours waiting for her turn to come up.)  The block of available tickets for email list subscribers sold out before the 12-hour allotted window closed.

Maybe the best part? Our tickets are for a certain weekend in May. Mother's Day weekend, to be exact. Happy Mother's/Voldemort Day weekend to me!! lol  ;)

Have you seen "Hamilton"? (Do you care??  lol)

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here

11 comments:

  1. How exciting! I had a similar drama when Hamilton came to Denver last year. Paid waaaay more than I'd planned, but it didn't disappoint. Bonus that you get to go on Voldemort's weekend.

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    1. The tickets are about the same as I paid to see Elton John... I figure the entertainment value should be about the same so... ;)

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  2. Oh the drama that was the purchasing of Hamilton tickets! labmonkey and I are both email subscribers, so we had a deal that whoever got in to the waiting room first would try to get tickets. I went in on both my phone and my laptop and ended up 7997 (laptop) and 16,000 something on the phone. But labmonkey was 184!!! So she got in within 8 minutes and...nothing. No matter what date she selected she couldn't find ANY seats. Someone on Twitter was #24 and they had gone through every performance looking for one seat at best available and still nothing.

    Then, after 40 minutes or so they got the tickets working for new people but everyone still waiting in the system couldn't get them! Finally they did a hard reload of the site and it worked and labmonkey successfully got her tickets and mine. But it took almost two hours and was a total ordeal.

    Glad you got tickets! I was thinking about you when labmonkey and I were freaking out.

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  3. PS. Great article about stillbirth in the Guardian today

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  4. It all sounds like a bit of a nightmare! So glad you got them. And what perfect timing for the tickets. A reason to look forward to that weekend!

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  5. That’s amazing!! It’s so crazy what a fiasco it is to try and get tickets these days!! I have had my share of issues, and the whole waiting-room thing is so odd...but I’m so glad you got tickets!!
    I tell you, I never had any interest in seeing Hamilton, until I started hearing the soundtrack. A friend from work saw it and was obsessed and he played the soundtrack on repeat, and I was blown away. It’s absolutely brilliant. The next time it comes near me I am definitely going to try and get tickets.
    Also...if you look up the app Hamilton Lottery, you can put in for a chance to win Lottery to tickets to the show in major cities. They open the lottery the day before the show time and you can join. If you are selected you can buy up to 2 tickets at $10 each.

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  6. Oh wow! That's fantastic and I bet it will be a wonderful performance. I'd love to see it - one of these days, maybe ;). Glad that you were able to wade through all that to get the tickets.

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  7. I'm envious! We had the season ticket holder only deal here, but I couldn't bring myself to spend that much money. I don't know if they ever released tickets to the general public, but I'll sign up for the lottery every day and hope for the best!

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