James Afaster.
Today saw the first Mostly
Comedy pre-sale of the year, with tickets for April’s gig with James Acaster (and a secret
special guest) selling out to our mailing list in just forty-six minutes; I’ve left jacket potatoes in the oven for longer.
It’s amazing how demand for the club has grown, with dates now habitually selling out long before they reach general sale. While this happens more often than not these days, I’d never get blasé about it, as we know how fortunate we are for the interest, but it's likely to continue providing our line-ups are right, as once people are aware of how quickly tickets go on pre-sale days, they’re more inclined to be at their computers from the moment the secret link goes live, clicking refresh repeatedly in the hope seats become free; it’s the dictionary definition of a snowball effect (well, nearly).
To keep track of how quickly seats are snapped up, I make a point of noting down how many have gone as time ticks away. Thanks to this, I know that forty-eight tickets went in the first minute, which changed to sixty-five a minute later, with ninety-eight sold by five minutes past. For any arts event to sell so rapidly is unusual, so we’re very lucky, but it’s almost amusing that demand's become so huge, as James played the club’s second ever gig to a room that hadn’t heard of him yet, let alone rushed to book; a lot can change in nine years.
The only downside to how swiftly tickets sell is a large number of people - many of whom are regulars - will inevitably miss out. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to prevent this, other than offering a pre-sale to the mailing list as we do. Thankfully, most people seem to understand there can be no guarantees when so many are visiting the same link at the same time and there are only 150 seats. Not everyone does though: one person emailed us the following today, word-for-word, with no greeting or sign-off:
It’s amazing how demand for the club has grown, with dates now habitually selling out long before they reach general sale. While this happens more often than not these days, I’d never get blasé about it, as we know how fortunate we are for the interest, but it's likely to continue providing our line-ups are right, as once people are aware of how quickly tickets go on pre-sale days, they’re more inclined to be at their computers from the moment the secret link goes live, clicking refresh repeatedly in the hope seats become free; it’s the dictionary definition of a snowball effect (well, nearly).
To keep track of how quickly seats are snapped up, I make a point of noting down how many have gone as time ticks away. Thanks to this, I know that forty-eight tickets went in the first minute, which changed to sixty-five a minute later, with ninety-eight sold by five minutes past. For any arts event to sell so rapidly is unusual, so we’re very lucky, but it’s almost amusing that demand's become so huge, as James played the club’s second ever gig to a room that hadn’t heard of him yet, let alone rushed to book; a lot can change in nine years.
The only downside to how swiftly tickets sell is a large number of people - many of whom are regulars - will inevitably miss out. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to prevent this, other than offering a pre-sale to the mailing list as we do. Thankfully, most people seem to understand there can be no guarantees when so many are visiting the same link at the same time and there are only 150 seats. Not everyone does though: one person emailed us the following today, word-for-word, with no greeting or sign-off:
“This is so annoying - I've been trying to get tickets since 9:01. Nothing.“
I can’t understand the complaint when everyone
has the same chance; do they think bookings aren’t going through when 150
tickets manage to be snapped up so quickly?
Thankfully, not everyone is like this; we also received a email from a punter who congratulated us on the night and said they think we undercut ourselves and should raise the price to £15:
Thankfully, not everyone is like this; we also received a email from a punter who congratulated us on the night and said they think we undercut ourselves and should raise the price to £15:
“Cineworld costs more than you charge so….come on….take a bit more from us – the demand is clearly there – you deserve it.”
While we’re in no hurry to increase the price just yet, it’s nice that someone appreciates the value and want us to do better from it; it makes a change from people moaning.
