Tickets: Broadway, Sports, Lectures, etc.

Tickets

January 20, 2012

I am lucky enough to attend a number of concerts, Yankee games, Broadway shows and lectures year round. Most of these are ticketed events with assigned seating as denoted on the ticket. However, lately, I noticed many people do not understand assigned seating.

You see, I wait on the ticketholders line, let the usher scan my ticket and walk over to my seat and wait for the curtain to rise, the first pitch to be thrown, the opening song. You get the picture.

The other day, I was at the 92nd Street Y for the Terezin Lecture. I was seated in Row J, seat 115. Behind me a cute young couple said, “hmm are these assigned seats? The tickets have seat numbers”. They asked me if I knew the deal. I let them know that seating was assigned. Then they examined their ticket and saw they were several rows up from where there parked themselves.

They got up and moved to their row. For some reason, they had some difficulty figuring how to move up three or four rows. All they needed to do was walk down the Kaufman Concert Hall’s aisle and look for their row. Thankfully, they found their place.
Seated a few seats away from me in Row J was a middle-aged woman. She had the same issue the younger folks had. Me and the friendly elderly gentleman seated next to me explained to her that yes, the tickets had numbers imprinted on then that told you where your seat was. This is not a movie theater. She walked up to her row and wound up being dead center in the third row from the stage.

June 26 was Yankees Old-Timers Day. I was seated in the Stadium and a friend was seated a few sections away from me with his wife and infant. We texted and called each other pre-game. I walked over to their section to say hi and snapped a few pictures of us. Once were done shooting photos and making small talk, I began to walk back to my seat.
He asked me where I was going? I told him back to my seat. He said, “can’t you sit with us”? I said “no the seats are assigned. The seats next to you might be empty now. But you can be sure Yankee fans will be there just as the first pitch is being thrown”. The usher was standing right there and laughing. He still didn’t get it. But I explained it again. We shook hands. I returned to my seat.

Last week, I saw Seminar. Great play. Go see it. Again, people didn’t seem to understand their seat was the denoted by their ticket. The ushers explained this. The theatergoers got into their right seats. Alan Rickman took the stage and made us laugh for the next 90 minutes.