Miss Saigon 25th Anniversary Performance and Gala

[RW3]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 8:22am

Was just posted on Miss Saigon's FB page:
THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY GALA PERFORMANCE IS NOW SOLD OUT.

We are sorry that so many of you had difficulty booking tickets on-line for the 25th Anniversary gala this morning. The truth of the matter is that over 18,000 people tried to book tickets simultaneously at 10am - an unprecedented amount for a single performance in a theatre with just over 1700 seats. We had a queue around the block at the theatre and the overwhelming demand on-line crashed the system at 10:10am and subsequently crashed the entire Delfont Mackintosh website. The technical team got this back up and running as quickly as possible but the performance was sold out within minutes. We knew that the event would be popular, but it was a surprise to discover we needed a venue 10 times the size to accommodate everyone.

We will still do our usual day seats on the morning of the 22nd September and we hope to release some production seats between now and then, which are currently held for the cast and some invited guests.

I guess it's okay that I live in America.

[ggersten]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 11:45am

It's not okay. I'm going to be in London that day and tried to get tickets online. It was a bloody disaster. The website just didn't work. You could eventually get to "select seats" (no "Best Available" option), then wait and wait and wait and wait and then get a message that those seats were not available and you would get sent to the beginning which showed those same seats still available!
And there was no surprise - this was not a "Now on sale" moment - there was "priority booking" that you had to sign up for. So, they knew how many people had signed up and were potentially going to try and buy tickets at 10:00 AM london time (before the sale to the general public at Noon). But, the site wasn't even ready to go at 10:00 am! Or it crashed right away. I and others got a message that "online booking closed" at about 10:30, only to find out that people started buying tickets about fifteen minutes after that!

They could/should have had a Royal Albert Hall production, which would have accommodated many more people.

I can only imagine what the day seat line will be.

[rjm516]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 2:58pm

I know suchhh a mess. After the site crashed I was on the phone for an hour with them and finally got (bad but whatever) tickets. What kind of system do they have and what awful planning process if calling worked better than doing it online? Like get with the times. I'm so happy and lucky but it's not fair to everyone else who had priority but couldn't get tickets.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 3:03pm

Direct link:
https://www.facebook.com/MissSaigonOfficial/posts/269581643238913

And followup:
https://www.facebook.com/MissSaigonOfficial/posts/269714416558969

[ggersten]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 3:34pm

I wish I could have phoned the box office, but I was in a hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina, and calling international on a cell phone is prohibitive (ok, I did call and waited two minutes before better judgment set in)

[algy]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 4:04pm

I tried on the website for an hour - with various of the problems (no link to the tickets, no date to select, timing out etc) then did 15 minutes on hold before I decided that I was only 30 minutes away from the theatre and headed down - I got there just under the priority booking wire at about 11.55 and got two upper circle seats - initially was offered A14&A15 - but in the time it took the man to tell me that, they were gone - so we're in D. Feeling very, very lucky although I found the process of getting the tickets infuriating - the Cumberbatch Hamlet may have been oversubscribed, but at least you got updates on what was happening, how many people were in front of you in the queue etc.