Hamilton Musical

[dgaddis]

So Hamilton is playing at the Fox in Atlanta currently. Tickets are crazy expensive, the prices fluctuate, at one point they were over $600 per seat (even all the way in the back) and last time I looked they had dropped to "only" ~$480 each.

No way I'm paying that much to see, well, about anything to be honest.

But they have a lottery, if you win you can get a pair of tickets for only $10 each. And only the person who wins can claim the tickets (so you can't sell them to make a healthy profit). The lottery says the seats may be obstructed view, and they can't guarantee your two seats will be together. They have a separate contest for each day. Two days before the show you can enter, the day before they let you know if you won or not.

Well the wife has been entering every day for the Atlanta shows. Friday morning she calls and tells me she won a pair of tickets for the 8pm show on Saturday night!!! What! So we scramble to make plans to attend, and with a 10 week old baby and no family in town it's a big ordeal. We ended up getting caught in traffic (I hate Atlanta), and arrived over an hour later than planned at my parents house to drop off the baby. Thankfully no traffic on the way to the show from there, so we arrived with about 20 minutes to spare.

You don't get to pick your seats if you win the lottery. So we get there, collect our tickets, and see that we are sitting next to each other (yay!) but don't pay any other attention to where they're at.

Y'all. Lin Manuel is both a genius, and a good dude. The lottery tickets are FRONT ROW SEATS. WHAT!!

The show was freakin' awesome, loved every bit of it. Can't believe we got to sit front row for only $10 each. Also, I think we saw the very last show in Atlanta.

Between gas, food (we didn't get to eat dinner thanks to the traffic problems), and some souvenirs it still wasn't exactly a 'cheap date', but it was an awesome night.

Speaking of the souvenirs - $40 for a t-shirt!!! And people LINED UP to pay it, us included! We also got a onesie for the baby, 'cause, I mean how could we not...


The hottest merch of 'Hamilton,' from the 'Scrappy' baby onesie to the 'My Shot' glass

Anyhow. If you get a chance to see the show, do it, it lives up to the hype (and nothing ever lives up to the hype IMO). They're doing the lottery everywhere it's playing I think :: Lottery - Hamilton Official Site – Hamilton Official Site

[robin3mj]

That’s a great story. Congrats!

It’s playing DC from June to Sept and some tickets were just announced a few weeks back. My wife got up earlier than she usually does on a Saturday to snag some. I think we paid about $180 a pop for right after Labor Day. Looking forward to it.

My folks saw it in NY and raves about it.

[guido]

Bravo! I want to see it, but I agree $480 is a touch steep... I completely agree that Lin Manuel is a creative genius and a mensch. Some day...

[vertical_doug]

Hamilton is playing at the Victoria Palace in London. They did not want the crazy scalping to happen here so have tight rules about ticket purchases and resale. You pick up your tickets at the box office as you enter by showing ID and credit card used for the purchase. You decide you can't go, you can return your tickets back to the box office for refund before the performance online at anytime. A few days before performances tickets always get returned and you can purchase these at face value. It is such a nice system I don't see why they don't introduce it in the states. The best seats run £200 ($280). It's a steal

BTW, as an American, just seeing King George sing 'You'll be Back' in England is worth the price of tickets.

[dgaddis]

Hamilton is playing at the Victoria Palace in London. They did not want the crazy scalping to happen here so have tight rules about ticket purchases and resale. You pick up your tickets at the box office as you enter by showing ID and credit card used for the purchase. You decide you can't go, you can return your tickets back to the box office for refund before the performance online at anytime. A few days before performances tickets always get returned and you can purchase these at face value. It is such a nice system I don't see why they don't introduce it in the states. The best seats run £200 ($280). It's a steal

BTW, as an American, just seeing King George sing 'You'll be Back' in England is worth the price of tickets.

King George was our favorite!! The guy that played him at the Atlanta show was incredibly talented too, I can't imagine how anyone could have done it better, and he had an amazing voice. He winked at my wife, made her night!

Getting tickets can be a real issue thanks to bots. When Sturgill Simpson played at the Fox in Atlanta a year or two ago tickets were only $60 each, but the 'bots got them. I was at my PC hitting refresh when they went on sale so I'd be first in line. It went from from "Tickets go on sale at 10am" immediately to "This show is sold out" F***!!!!!! Folks then resold them for a couple hundred bucks a seat. Soo....we didn't get to go see him. I'm still pissed about that.

[j44ke]

I hear he is working on something new presently. Crafting the second thing after a success is always tough.

[theflashunc]

Hamilton is such a love letter to 80s and 90s hip hop, particularly New York artists from that era. Its all brilliant, from references to Biggie's Juicy to Mobb Deep's Shook Ones for the first duel. I particularly liked Jefferson's simple rhyme schemes becomes wayyyyyy more complex after he comes back from Europe.

My only complaint is some of the cast -- when we saw it in SF -- were pushing the limits of their rhyming and flow. Not everybody's Daveed Diggs, sadly, and that ruined some of the magic.

But man, King George. So phenomenal.

[gt6267a]

we went in ATL and loved it. seat pricing and acoustics at the fox is an interesting game. the audio quality of the first ~16 rows downstairs and ~10 rows upstairs is massively different Vs sitting under the canopy or the way back seats upstairs. seat prices are set accordingly. we were 4 rows back upstairs and had a great view. there are other rooms in town with better sound, seats, and visibility. I wish the broadway touring companies would consider locations other than the fox. its a beautiful room filled with nostalgia, but actually being able to hear the show while sitting in a comfortable seat also has value. most of the better venues are north of downtown which would not help the commute from macon. that said, I'm happy to meet you for dinner or a beer next time you come up.

[davids]

I saw it in Chicago in March. I paid box office rates for 3 orchestra tickets for a Friday evening performance. They were about $200 each and absolutely worth it.

The big surprise to me is that I was able to buy the tickets from the box office about 4 days before the show: Every few years I go off for a long weekend with a couple childhood friends. We'd planned the trip months earlier, but hadn't spent any time figuring out what we would do. So we started looking for stuff the weekend prior to our trip. When I found the seats I was stunned and more than a little suspicious. But everything looked kosher so I pulled the trigger. I was at least 20% expecting a scam right until the guy at the box office put the tickets in my hand.

So my advice? Go to Chicago: Hamilton | Broadway in Chicago. You'll pay a fair price for an astounding work of art. And then go do a dozen other fantastic things while you're visiting. We did the Field Museum, the Art Institute, and saw They Might Be Giants for good measure.

[funcrusher]

I hear he is working on something new presently. Crafting the second thing after a success is always tough.

the follow up to gangnam style was pretty good

[theflashunc]

I hear he is working on something new presently. Crafting the second thing after a success is always tough.

Hamilton was the second thing for him. In the Heights was, by typical musical standards, a pretty blockbuster success. Some guys just have it, and he's got it.

[robin3mj]

Saw this at the Kennedy Center in DC this weekend; had dinner with some friends at Founding Farmers right before the show.

It was worth every penny. So high energy, and as noted above, the beats and flow were right in the wheelhouse of someone who grew up in the early 90's.

[Clyde]

$160 each here in Greenville show is in Dec.
Will report on event later.
Gaddis sorry about bbq thought you were closer.

[dgaddis]

Gaddis sorry about bbq thought you were closer.

No worries, I used to be in Augusta! Enjoy the show, it's worth it IMO!

[rwsaunders]

My wife scored four tickets this morning for an upcoming show in Pittsburgh via some kind of digital lottery and she's pumped. Our daughter saw the show in NYC a few years back with the original cast including, Lin-Manuel Miranda...she was blown away and she's been talking about it ever since.

[davids]

My wife scored four tickets this morning for an upcoming show in Pittsburgh via some kind of digital lottery and she's pumped. Our daughter saw the show in NYC a few years back with the original cast including, Lin-Manuel Miranda...she was blown away and she's been talking about it ever since.

Congrats!

My strong advice - if you're not familiar with the music, get the soundtrack and listen, listen, listen. Familiarity will increase your enjoyment of the staging and, of course, listening to that marvelous creation over & over again is its own reward.

[dgaddis]

Congrats!

My strong advice - if you're not familiar with the music, get the soundtrack and listen, listen, listen. Familiarity will increase your enjoyment of the staging and, of course, listening to that marvelous creation over & over again is its own reward.

Counterpoint - I hadn't heard a bit of the music and still thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Congrats on winning the tickets!!