I will be seeing Coriolanus. At the Donmar Warehouse. With some of my amazing friends. My squee runneth over.
This is entirely due to the efforts of Sera The Great And Powerful, who organized a group of us to call and hit the Barclay’s front row website for the 10GBP tickets when they were released. I called and was breathing heavily at my laptop as if sheer willpower could make the online queue cough up tickets.
What ultimately worked for me was calling. I got through when there were still tickets, and so did my husband actually, though his customer service rep initially grabbed tickets for him on the wrong day, and by the time they’d gotten that sorted out, everything was gone. I managed to speak with my rep in a reasonable, adult fashion despite the fact that I was dancing in place like a three-year-old hyped up on pixie stix.
I thought I’d take down a few notes here, if you’re trying to get tickets for the show, since I actually had tried twice before and had no luck and the advice would have been nice.
- Do not be a dick to the customer service people. Ever. Just don’t. (Not a mistake I made, obviously, but a very important point.)
- Consider enlisting a friend or two to help with the queue roulette. (Particularly if they can go with you! No brainer.)
- Remember that there is a limit of two tickets per person and plan accordingly.
- The tickets release on Monday at 10 AM GMT, two weeks before the week in which the shows occur. So today (the 23rd) was for the shows January 6-12. If you go to the Barclay’s Front Row website, it’ll tell you which dates are coming up.
- Calling seemed to work better than online. I honestly never had any luck with the online, but it never hurts to try both if you are capable of basic multitasking.
- For the website, you need to be online and watching it around 9:45GMT. As soon as the link to ATG at the bottom goes live, hit it, then reload the as you approach 10 AM until it tells you that you’re actually in queue. Which is, as far as I know, all you can do other than burn offerings to whatever dark and terrible god you think might give half a shit about Shakesepeare. (Azathoth? Not known for his love of the bard.) Then you just wait and see if there are any tickets available once you’re out of queue. Click like the wind!
- For the box office, call about five minutes or so before 10AM under the assumption that you will be put on hold. If you call too early and get picked up before 10AM, they’re not going to sell you the tickets.
- Know which show (date and time!) you want and have a couple on backup so you can tell the rep which ones to look for.
- Cross your fingers.
- And do not ever, ever be a dick to the customer service people. Did I mention this before? Because it’s important. (Not because this will magically help you get tickets, but because it will generally mean you are a good human being and that should be more than enough incentive.)
And then I was so incredibly excited, I had to have a cup of tea and do push ups. Mike and I are actually going to try to wait in line for returns when we get back into London this coming weekend, because that will be Mike’s only chance to get in to see the play. We’ll see how that turns out.
In the meantime, I’m going to re-read Coriolanus. (Hm, wonder if it’s one of the ones Mike’s parents have the Arden Shakespeare for…) Then I can be one of those There’s No Pleasing Some People nerds and grumble about what got cut. (Just kidding.) (Mostly.) (I had a nice little grumble about Henry V after all, even with all the squee.) I’ve gotten to see a show at the Donmar before, Roots (thanks to the ever-wonderful Kate), and the theater is fantastic. I can’t wait.
Still feeling like this, even seven hours later: