Ticket switch means fans miss the boat to see Ship musical
STING IN THE TALE AS CHARITY GIG RUINS PUNTERS’ PLANS
STING fans who booked to see a performance of his musical The Last Ship have been told the ship has sailed.
Northern Stage has told anyone who booked the show on March 20th next year that their tickets are invalid – because a charity has block-booked the seats.
The Graham Wylie Foundation wants a private gala performance of the show on the same day.
But tickets had already been snapped up by members of the public.
One furious fan claimed as much as a quarter of the venue’s capacity had been sold.
A spokeswoman for the venue said they were investigating what had happened but could not say how many people were affected.
But fan Steve Warren, of Durham, said the ticket mix-up should never have happened.
He said: “Earlier this month I and many other people bought tickets for Northern Stage’s production of The Last Ship on Tuesday, March 20th next year.
“We have now been informed by the theatre’s sales manager that our tickets have been declared invalid because the Graham Wylie Foundation has demanded exclusive attendance rights on that particular date.
“We have been offered alterna- tive dates but I have refused to accept any of these as a matter of principle.
“I have written to both Northern Stage and the charity to express my disappointment as I feel that they had plenty of time to block off any dates they wanted to before the tickets went on public sale.
“At least a quarter of the theatre’s capacity had been sold when I obtained tickets for my wife and myself the day they were released.”
Steve had spent £35 each on two tickets.
An email sent to customers by Northern Stage said the request by the Graham Wylie Foundation had been made after the tickets went on sale.
It said: “Thank you so much for purchasing tickets for the performance of The Last Ship on Tue 20 March 2018, 7.30pm.
“Since going on sale, we have been requested by the Graham Wylie Foundation to use the performance Tue 20 March as a private gala, raising money for important charitable work in the North East.
“Unfortunately this means we will have to move your booking to another performance of The Last Ship.
“We are really sorry for the inconvenience caused by this.”
It offered tickets for four different performances and, by way of apology, an invitation to the press and guest performance of Frankie and Johnnie in the Clair De Lune in May 6.
A spokeswoman for the Graham Wylie Foundation said they had told the venue at an early stage to take tickets for the date off sale.
She said: “It was always marked down as a gala performance.”
Sting grew up as Gordon Sumner in Wallsend, where the story of The Last Ship is set, and began his professional career as a musician at the theatre, playing in the orchestra pit for a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
And while he won’t appear in the show, his friend Jimmy Nail – star of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Crocodile Shoes singer – will play shipyard foreman Jackie White.
Sting said after The Last Ship closed on Broadway early in 2015 – after he had joined the cast to boost ticket sales – the show had lived on in several one-off productions at theatres across America. Sting on the show’s opening night on Broadway, New York, in 2014