Early-morning crowd comes out for Come From Away tickets
The sale begins at 10 a.m. but folks were there hours before
A few dozen people lined up in the dark, early-morning hours outside the Holy Heart Theatre Tuesday hoping to get tickets to a Newfoundland run of the concert version of the Tony-award-winning musical Come From Away.
A limited number of tickets to the St. John's performances went on sale Tuesday at 10 a.m. It's the second chance for people hoping to see the show to get tickets, and the available seats come from cancellations after the first round of sales last fall.
"Any opportunity to see it again would be amazing," said Olga Trela, who saw the show last spring in New York City. She was at the front of the line at Holy Heart and says the magic and the music of the play has to be experienced in person.
"It was a bit nerve-racking because you don't know how many tickets. You just heard that there's a limited number of tickets available."
After missing out on Come From Away tickets the first time, Scott Ainsworth showed up at 6 a.m., expecting to see hundreds of people in line. But with just a small gathering of hopeful ticket-holders around, he knew he wouldn't be disappointed this time.
"I was number 7 in line!" he said.
Holy Heart staff wound up opening up the doors for the people waiting outside for tickets at about 8 a.m.
"It was great to get in out of the cold," Ainsworth said.
There are eight concert versions of the musical about flight passengers stranded in Gander after 9/11 scheduled for St. John's. The shows are planned for the end of January, and all will be performed by the cast of the Toronto production.
When tickets first went on sale for the St. John's shows, more than 150,000 hopeful online buyers crashed the theatre's website, while outside the theatre a lineup hundreds of people long snaked down the street.
Shortly after the shows sold out, tickets cropped up on sites like Kijiji for more than twice the original price.