Hello World. This is a blog about the ticket industry. I will blog about all aspects of the ticketing world including primary and secondary ticket sellers. Not subject will be out of bounds.
With the way things seem to be going for the Chicago Bears right now, there may be only four games left to get your tickets to see them play live. After a crucial setback in their loss against the Vikings last week, the Bears are not necessarily in a “win the rest” situation, but they’re pretty close. Between Minnesota and Chicago, the Bears have the easier schedule. The Vikings are also suffering from a few key player suspensions.
There are so many Broadway shows closing at the beginning of next year that a thought just struck me. Anyone who wants to see a Broadway show should get tickets right away! There isn’t much time and for shows like Spamalot it is going to be sold out so fast that you may already have trouble buying tickets. Hurry up! There are a dozen shows or more that are closing, due to the bad economy and low tickets sales in the last two quarters or so. So again, hurry up before it’s really too late!
The ticket stub for the opening day game at the new New York Yankees baseball stadium is guaranteed to be an instant collectible. Anyone who is a baseball fan in New York is trying their hardest to get their hands on tickets to opening day. Those with season passes will obviously have first cracks at tickets, while the rest need to check out the Yankees website for more information.
With November in its fading moments, College basketball season is now well underway with most of the teams having already played a handful of games. While it’s not surprising that UNC and Duke are off to great starts, there was already a fairly startling upset as Xavier defeated the number 2 Memphis tigers 63-58 yesterday, as well as the fact that Central Oklahoma is 4-0 for the first time since 1997. However, this is all just kindling for the huge fire known March Madness.
A new one-man show has opened in New York and it is reviewed in the New York Times as a “delightful show”. The show is called “Sleepwalk with Me” and it is a very interesting show, apparently. One-man shows are, according to the article, hard to put together and hard to hit just right. And they say that the star, Mike Birbiglia, has got it just right. He doesn’t peak too soon or miss the funny parts. Perhaps his background in standup comedy has helped on this count, or perhaps he was well directed, but it’s probably some combination of the two. Anyway, if you’re in New York, you should check out this show, if you get the chance.
Last year it was an instant and monstrous success. This year, the stakes are raised once more as the Chicago Blackhawks will host the Detroit Red Wings in the second annual Winter Classic. If you’re not familiar with the Winter Classic, it’s the annual New Year’s Day outdoor hockey game. Wrigley Field has been chosen as the venue for this event and tickets are selling fast, or more likely, have already sold out.
The British Shadow Cultural Minister has attacked a new program from the Labour Party government in the UK. The program was designed to provide money to give rush tickets to theater events for free to people under 26. The minister says that the program is mainly bad because it is completely unfunded, making what we would call an “unfunded mandate.” He says “The £2.5 million is obviously not enough money for it to be a meaningful initiative and the implementation of it is being designed on the hoof. The arts council has been left holding the baby, forced to devise how the scheme would work and try to raise private money to support the scheme.” We obviously don’t have this kind of thing in the US, and it is all done with private money if at all. But it’s always interesting to see what kinds of things people are putting together in other parts of the world.
The hottest ticket on the market right now has got to be the Barack Obama ‘09 inauguration day tickets. Without a doubt, every democrat and his grandmother wants to score tickets to personally witness this massively historic day in American history. They will be extremely difficult to get, however. Not only is there a huge demand for the tickets, but there is also a very limited supply…not to mention that his biggest supporters will most likely get first crack on tickets. But, if you think you’ve got good luck, try this website.
Getting tickets for the NFL can be easy or hard, depending on where you want to see the game. You’d think, with a lot of professional talented players, any team would be sold out all the time, but that’s not true. With good teams, it’s much harder to get tickets than it is for worse teams. The Cincinnati Bengals would be fairly easy to get tickets for this year, because their team is having lots of troubles. Then it’s just the real diehard fans who are at the game and others just stay away for the time being. If a team is on the rise, however, like the Denver Broncos, then their tickets are certainly much more difficult to get. The very good teams, like the New York Giants are probably sold out most every game. You can still get tickets, but you have to scour the market for them.
David Mamet’s famous play American Buffalo opened this week in NYC, with it’s Broadway opening scheduled for mid-November. The play takes place in Chicago, about three small time crooks who look at life philosophically. They are trying to steal a coin from a local collector. The play notes describe the characters in the following way: “Volcanic and motor mouthed Teach (Leguizamo) schemes and spars with fatherly, street-smart junk shop owner Donny (Cedric the Entertainer) enlisting Bobby (Osment), a slow-witted and desperate young delinquent, to carry out their misbegotten robbery.”" The play was Mamet’s big piece on Broadway, and made his reputation known there.
