Well, we left our early morning New York tech rehearsal today (it started at 8 AM, the perfect time to do some musical comedy) and decided to stop by Fringe Central, the neat little office the festival has sell tickets. We stopped at the desk and met the nice people who worked there and asked them if we could see how our tickets were selling. They cheerfully obliged (after checking our mega-fancy Fringe participant badges, of course) and we began trying to decipher the ticket sale book.
As we attempted to figure out the complicated lists of “phone sales” and “Fringe Fivers” and whatnot, one thing began to become clear.
“Gee,” I said. “Some of these numbers look pretty high.”
Overhearing this, the woman behind the desk looked at her computer.
“Huh, these are pretty high,” she said. “In fact…Hey! Look at that! You sold out your opening night!”
Thus began the third greatest moment of my entire life.*
The first thing I did was text all of the cast and crew because nothing works better as an energy boost after a few long weeks of tiring rehearsals than finding out you’ve sold out a performance. Besides maybe having a miracle occur and me being able to reveal to them that they’re suddenly getting paid for the past few long weeks of tiring rehearsals.
The next thing I did was check the internet, which was already aflutter with buzz about our feat. Of course, the internet that was aflutter at that time was mostly just the Twitter accounts of the various cast and crew members I just texted.
However, now that it’s been a few hours, the actual internet has actually been buzzing. The Fringe Festival made an official announcement about how well ticket prices were going this year, and made a point of mentioning the handful of shows that have sold out performances already…meaning us! And then, big news places like Variety wrote articles about that announcement and continued to mention our name.
You can check out the article by either clicking the link there or by checking out our Press Time section (linked to right at the left of this page) which has seen a few new additions this past week, including a great interview Dave did with The Bergen Record, one of the biggest papers in the Garden State.
Anyway, today was a great day. And that was even before the Hobo Band went busking on the streets of New York!
The Hobo Band tries to sell some more tickets. To the performances that are left, that is.
Gosh, New Yorkers are fascinated when they see a musical singing saw!
ps. In case you didn’t get the message from the rest of the post, you should reserve your tickets for the remaining shows now! Our first performance is already sold out and, when we checked this afternoon, the third only had about 10 left.
* In case you’re wondering, the second greatest moment is inappropriate for this family website and the first greatest is actually just an empty slot at the moment since I’m reserving that space for the eventual birth of my first-born son; a future hero who will one day cure Cancer or go to Mars, all the while regaling friends with legends of the day his father’s Off-Broadway musical sold out its first performance.
