Yes, dear reader. You read that right. “But how did you manage to get into two of the hottest Broadway shows in a single weekend? And for free?” you ask? Sit tight, patience got me these experiences, and it shall get you the answer.
I read a daily newsletter that covers U.S. and world events in an engaging tone called TheSkimm, and I have referred enough people to it to become a Skimm’bassador. One of the perks of being an “SB” is being part of a Facebook group with over 12,000 other SBs, and it’s a group many of us are fond of due to the sharing nature of many of its members. In November of 2016, an SB posted on the group that a new wave of Hamilton Tickets for shows from May to October of 2017 had gone on sale in their regular Ticketmaster pricing. Normally, these tickets are gone within minutes thanks to bots and regular thirsty people like myself who really want to get their hands on tickets, but, this was November 9th, which was the day after the election in the U.S. and many people were too enthralled watching (or reeling from) the news to care about anything else. Because of this, I managed to go in and snatch myself 2 sets of tickets for shows in the weekend before my birthday in October. I figured, I’ll go to one and sell the other, and depending on how much I sell them for, I just might be able to cover the whole trip! That was wishful thinking at its best. At the time, ticket resales were going for much, much higher than now, since demand is not as crazy with shows opening up across the country and now even in London. So, that was that. I purchased my tickets, and waited patiently until it was time to put them up for sale.
Then, on March 6th of this year, I was on the phone with my brother, who had originally told me he wanted to come to the show with me, and I went on Ticketmaster to check my seats to see which of the two shows was better, when I saw a little message saying that a new wave of tickets was going on sale the next day at 10:00 am. OMG. Ticketmaster does not notify people when tickets go on sale, because they’d never be able to deal with the servers crashing from the volume of visitors, so it’s up to random humans to keep checking until they know when the sale day will be, and they spread the word. By chance, I found out just in time. I tell my brother the news, and he tells me he’s going to buy a set the next day, and I can’t resist the urge and end up buying a third set of tickets, in a very good section, this time for a show on November 10th. At this point I have in my hands 3 sets of tickets for shows on the 19th and 21st of October, and for November 10th. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to see Hamilton in 2017! All I had to do was pick a date and sell the other two sets.
Fast-forward to the Tony Awards, which took place on June 11th. By this point, I had already heard of Dear Evan Hansen and I was a fan of the few songs I’d heard, and of course I loved Ben Platt from Pitch Perfect… but I had looked at tickets recently and everything was pretty much gone except for the price-hiked “preferred seating” section… and I just didn’t want to drop that kind of money. Until I watched the Tonys and in the heat of the moment, I said eff it, and bought myself a pair of tickets to go see Dear Evan Hansen on the same weekend in October that I had two pairs of Hamilton tickets for.
At this point, I had spent $1,200 in all 3 sets of Hamilton Tickets, and $700 for 1 pair for Dear Evan Hansen. Someone needs to hide my wallet during award shows. JK, I know my credit card number by heart.
There was a lot of back and forth on who’d be my date for the plays, but I’ll save you the story and jump to the part where it was decided my dad would join me. Since his birthday is October 24th (TODAY! Happy birthday dad! <3) and mine is October 26th, this was shaping up to be the best pre-birthday weekend, ever. My dad found a great hotel deal and we were all set for the weekend. Now all I had to do was sell my extra tickets…
In mid-September my brother texts me and tells me he sold his Hamilton tickets for a good chunk of money and he was super happy with the extra cash. I was so relieved, because Hamilton was much more accessible by now than when we first got the tickets, so I was starting to get paranoid that we weren’t going to be able to resell them, and I thought he was going to be so mad at me for the idea. So the sigh of relief when he got rid of his was HUGE! A few days after, I checked back on Ticketmaster to see why my tickets weren’t selling, and turns out the section all around me had dropped prices. So I extra dropped mine to where I was still making a good amount but lower than everyone else, and within minutes – BAM. Sold my tickets. These were for one of the October sets (I kept the one with better seats for myself and sold the other one), I still had the November ones to sell, but I let those do the work themselves. Then, while I was in New York, ready to catch Hamilton in its full glory, I get another e-mail – BAM BAM. The November tickets sold too. And those were really good seats, and I was able to make a good chunk off of those. Basically, between the two sales, I made back exactly what I had spent on all four (3 Hamilton + 1 Dear Evan Hansen) sets of tickets and completely broke even. To the cent. I actually got to see Hamilton AND Dear Evan Hansen, in one weekend, for free. Not to mention, just a month later Ben Platt was ending his show run, so I felt even luckier and had even less regrets about having bought those highly priced tickets.
My dad and I went to both musicals and words can’t express what it felt like to be able to take him and gift him this experience. He’s always been so gracious and has gifted us with countless trips and concerts and plays in the past, and to be able to take him to the biggest shows of the year and in some pretty good seats = PRICELESS.
Work-Craft Balance 