There are a few ways to snag tickets to the hottest show on Broadway. But your options shrink significantly if you don’t want to pay full price, put money in scalpers’ pockets, or wait months and months for your shot.
While many “Hamilton” hopefuls within a few hours’ drive of NYC simply make a habit of entering the online lottery daily, diehard fans — alongside professional line-sitters, who are paid to wait in place of someone else — hit the cancellation line.
Those on the cancellation line can wait for it to see whether any ticket-holders cancel their seats for a performance (these tickets can also include unused seats that are generally saved for press or industry professionals). But apparently the line-waiting can get pretty intense. A quick search on Reddit brings up tales of fans finally getting their tickets or simply getting “f**ked over” after long waits.
The Huffington Post spoke to Rhonda Witherspoon, a professional cancellation line-sitter who posts her ads on Craigslist, to see what it it’s really like waiting in the greatest city in the world to snag “Hamilton” tickets.
How many people have taken you up on your ad?
Right now, business is pretty slow because I think people are still recovering from the fact that the original cast is gone, but I think it will pick up around fall. I’ve been doing it since April, but starting, like, the end of May, it was pretty much ... I didn’t have enough time to do the job.
What’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever had to wait?
I waited from Tuesday to Saturday.
Oh, my gosh! Do you just stay in the same line the whole time?
You pretty much have to. Once it got down to the last few weeks before the original cast left, you pretty much had to stay there the whole time. It was ... definitely an experience.
Are you there 24/7, or do you swap places with people?
Up until May 12 you could do that. But then they instigated ... because there was a big push against, you know, a lot of people. You have the line purist people who believe that you shouldn’t pay for anyone to sit for you and all that. So there were a lot of complaints. [The] new rules — you can’t swap, you have to go in with your customer — that made it pretty hard.
So, did fights break out on the line?
I was dealing with two situations. One was, like, regular patrons — which were, to me, more normal, easier to deal with, people who you know, are keeping your place in line or whatever. But you have some very official, professional line-sitters, and there was a lot of sabotage. Like calling the cops on you, controlling the line, you know, pretending to be officials of the [theater]. Myself, I’ve had to write a letter to management of [the] Nederlander [Organization] and the theater. It’s pretty crazy. It’s a story within a story within a story.
What do you bring with you to wait on line?
What I usually do is a fold-up chair, on most days, definitely a sleeping bag, a pillow — something that’s easy to fold, because you never know if they might make you [pack up]. ‘Cause that was also part of their rules [...] because they were tired of all of the stuff outside, so you couldn’t have anything. But people managed to store their things. You couldn’t have tents and all that stuff. For me, personally, it was just a pillow and my sleeping bag and a folding chair.
Can you get up to go to the bathroom and get food and stuff?
Well, yeah, what I do is you definitely want to make friends on either side of you. It got to the point where, it got so crazy. I had a situation once where these guys were very, very aggressive and very much monopolizing — they run off several line companies but they still try to jerk around the independent line-sitters. So they would basically try to form a conspiracy against you, say you were too long somewhere, something like that, to get you kicked off the line. Everyone’s taking video of each other constantly. You know, no one trusted anyone.
Have you seen “Hamilton” yourself?
I have! Once they enforced the rule where you have to go in with your customer, um, I saw the show about four times. I got that bragging right! I really want to see the new cast. I’ve just started putting up new ads. This is my new run and I’m really gonna go hard. There are still a lot of people who want to see the show. It’s still sold out.
Have you been a professional line-sitter before?
I have been. I worked for Task Rabbit and I used to do some line-sitting, you know, just for customers. That was the first time I ever did anything like that. I did it for the iPhone, and other things. And then I ran into [a professional line-sitter], who was in the cronut line passing out cards. I worked for him for a little while, but we had some creative differences. I stopped working for him and I started doing it for myself.
Do you mainly advertise on Craigslist and by word of mouth?
Yeah, I advertise on Craigslist and through word of mouth. A lot of people that I did “Hamilton” jobs for would often tell people about me. It was really hard, though, to book jobs early because everything changed so much from day to day. You never knew what new rule they were going to throw out there for you, you didn’t know ... it’s so unpredictable, what one week would be a 24-hour wait would jump to a three-day wait, which would jump to a five-day wait. You couldn’t properly charge by the hour all the time because it [would get expensive].
Do you have a favorite story of a moment on the line, like someone who’s wanted to see it for a long time get tickets?
There were these little girls, young girls, they were like, in love with Anthony Ramos. [Theater officials] started cutting the line off, they said, “Oh, you guys aren’t gonna get tickets.” Right before the show starts, a patron, who had gotten into the show — he was on the line too, himself, for the cancellation line. Well, it turns out, he was an executive at Google.
I don’t know why he was on the cancellation line. I guess he was just doing it for the experience, and he felt so bad because they were crying. He came out, and while he was inside, he purchased tickets for them. At that time, tickets were over a thousand dollars. And he bought ... like, he could’ve bought that for himself! You know, I guess he just wanted to experience it. And I remember that was like, a really great moment. If you’ve ever seen four 13-year-olds lose their minds ...
Witherspoon charges $300 for both the wait time and ticket and can be contacted for her line-sitting services through her Craigslist ad. This interview has been edited and condensed.
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