Rush for Hamilton tickets ...but it’s curtains for touts!
STREAMS of fans waited in an online queue yesterday to get their hands on the hottest ticket in the West End.
Hit musical Hamilton opens in London later this year after a hugely successful Broadway run.
And in news which will delight loyal theatregoers, producers are waging war on touts by introducing a more secure ticketing system.
Touts in the US have demanded as much as £8,200 for tickets to the musical, which tells the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton through hip-hop and R&B.
But in an attempt to crack down on the spiralling prices of tickets which are often listed on resale websites, the Victoria Palace Theatre will only let people in if they present the payment card they used with primary seller Ticketmaster.
More than 100,000 signed up in the summer for a chance to buy tickets yesterday, ahead of general release on January 30. But fans face a long wait to see the show – previews begin on November 21 ahead of the official opening on December 7.
Yesterday resale site Viagogo was advertising three Hamilton tickets for its first preview show for £1,759.12. Tickets were originally priced at £32.50, £47.50 or £79.50.
The other major reselling websites, StubHub, Get Me In and Seatwave, had not listed Hamilton tickets last night.
Sales giant Ticketmaster, which owns Get Me In and Seatwave, has been accused of passing tickets to its subsidiaries in return for a cut. Adele took a stand against touts last month, banning the resale of her tickets for higher prices. But that didn’t stop one seller from listing an Adele ticket for £6,599.
Last week the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show revealed that Robbie Williams’s management team was placing tickets on resale websites at higher prices.
IE Music put tickets for Williams’s 2017 tour on Get Me In and Seatwave – in one case for £65 more.
The firm has previously called on the Government to take stronger action against resale sites. Delfont Mackintosh Theatres said it introduced the paperless ticket system ‘to combat the unauthorised profiteering of third party resellers’.
It added: ‘Upon arrival at the theatre on the day of the performance, patrons will be asked to swipe the payment card they used to originally purchase their tickets’.
Hamilton was created by LinManuel Miranda, who also stars as the title character. Its music borrows from rappers including Jay Z as well as composers Stephen Sondheim and Gilbert & Sullivan.