5am. Icy cold. It’s the ‘golden ticket’ queue . . .
IT’S midnight on a freezing cold Friday night in December and the wind is biting.
Most people are tucked up in bed but outside the locked gates of Elstree studios are Alice Jollife, 31, and her mother Sue, 59.
They unfold collapsible camping chairs, roll out sleeping bags and prepare to spend the night on the narrow path that separates the studios in Hertfordshire from a dark and uninviting park beyond.
And they are delighted to be there. Alice and Sue have been waiting six years for success in a BBC ballot to win audience tickets for Strictly Come Dancing – then two weeks ago, they struck lucky.
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ says Alice, a community nurse. ‘It’s so precious, like the golden ticket.’ It is no mean feat. Every week, two million people apply but only 800 are chosen. Even then there is a cruel twist: producers only validate half those tickets.
So to guarantee a seat among the sequins and glitterballs there is only one solution: queue for one of 400 precious green ‘validation’ stickers, distributed on a firstcome, first-served basis when the doors open at 9am on Saturday.
Diehard fans have been known to arrive at Elstree at 10pm the night before, waiting cheerfully for 11 hours in the cold to make sure they bag their places as part of the Saturday night audience.
‘Queuing is just all part of the fun,’ Alice says. ‘I’m not cold.’ She is well prepared, with her hair already in curlers and three outfits packed (black, sequined and glittery). Once her ticket is validated, she will go to her hotel for a nap, then return to the studio at 3pm to take her seat.
Also queuing are Jo, 43, and her husband Paul, 49. They had been applying for five years before Paul received a text from the BBC. ‘It felt like winning the lottery,’ says Jo.
By 5am, the queue is full of people who have come from as far away as Cornwall and the north of Scotland. But as the sky lightens, and the number of people in the queue approaches 400, the mood at the back is getting tense.
Clive and Peggy Brand, both in their 70s, had no idea people got up so early to wait. ‘I’m worried now,’ admits Peggy. ‘I realise it’s once-in-a-lifetime and I’ll be really upset if I don’t get a seat.’
When the gates open at 9am on the dot everyone, even Peggy and Clive, gets their tickets.
For the late-comers, it’s a slow waltz home. The prize – as coveted as the glitterball trophy itself – will have to wait until next year.