"Hamilton" fever is about to hit a pitch.
Officials at the Hennepin Theatre Trust, which presents Broadway in Minneapolis, including Lin-Manuel Miranda's blockbuster musical about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, expect a crush of ticket-buyers online and in person at the box office of the State Theatre in Minneapolis when "Hamilton" tickets go on sale at 10 a.m.
They expect this biggest batch of tickets to the hottest show in the land to sell out quickly, just as they did in February when over 15,000 tickets opened up for season ticket subscribers. About 100,000 tickets will be sold Thursday to the show, which runs Aug 29-Oct 7.
There also will be a lottery for 40 tickets at $10 apiece to each performance.
Back in February, overwhelming demand crashed the online ticket-buying system; presenters blamed ticket-buying computer bots and scalpers for the snafu. This time around, they introduced a program called Verified Fan, which is supposed to ensure that actual humans are buying tickets, limited to four per person.
On Thursday, ticket-buyers will see how well it works.
The program is run through vendor Ticketmaster. Trust spokesperson Dale Stark said that he does not know how many people registered through Verified Fan or if the number of registrants outstrips the number of available tickets.
As for those coming to the State Theatre box office, Stark said that the trust is discouraging those who wish to camp overnight. "We're not setting ourselves up to make overnight accommodations," he said. "We expect people to show up early Thursday and we'll have accommodations then."
Will everyone standing in line be able to get tickets?
"We're anticipating a larger crowd than tickets available," he said.
