December 14, 2008

Going once, going twice, going three times, going four times...SOLD!

I was losing faith that my Spring Awakening ticket for NYC would sell since we're down to about 2 weeks before the show, and no one seemed set on buying it. Over the past 2 weeks, I've had 2 people contact me and say they were interested, but both were sparse in communication and ended up backing out. Then today, a third person contacted me, but backed out when I told him the price ($50--exactly what I paid). Around the same time I had been communicating with person #3, person #4 messaged me and seemed to be interested as well. I've talked to so many people I don't even remember that person's reason for backing out. Then person # 5 responded, within the same hour as persons 3 and 4, stating she wanted the ticket. As I'm finally working out the paypal details to sell to person #5, person #6 sends me an email with a phone number saying he's definitely interested as well. So the moral of this story is when it rains, it pours, though honestly I'd have totally deserved losing the $50 after I was stupid enough to accidentally buy a ticket to NY!

December 5, 2008

Spring Awakening--A Little Less Hanson, A Little More Crazy

Ok, so this is a little detour from Hanson. BUT, it still deals with me being a fool and not caring, specifically with traveling absurd amounts of miles to see a show. So, with that connection made, meet my newest obsession:






If you know nothing about it and care to educate yourself, wikipedia has a pretty good description.





Apparently I've been living under a rock for the past year or two because it's been around for a while and seems to have been wildly popular and won lots of awards, yet I never heard about it. I recently discovered it because I also recently discovered the awesomeness that is Kyle Riabko(who plays the lead, Melchior, in the play)--but that's another story.

At this point, it's pretty clear Hanson has successfully desensitized my traveling judgment. "Close" has more or less become an entirely relative term, only functioning in relation of the closest a given act (namely Hanson) comes to me. So while researching Spring Awakening, I decided I was interested in going to see it on tour, at it's "closest" stop to me, which turned out to be Tampa, FL, and really not that close at all as it is about a 9 hour drive from me. Aside from Hanson, I blame it on my dad, who never leaves his chair in our living room. Mom always complains that we never travel, but never really does anything about it. Well, I'm doing something about it. Who wants to sit around and read about something neat when you could be experiencing it for yourself? That's my rationalizing, anyway.

So I did what I've done before with seated Hanson concerts: I reasoned in my head that if I could get a good enough seat, it would be worth the trip. And when I got up early for school one morning and found the last on-stage seat available up for grabs, I jumped on it without too much thought, just so ecstatic at the thought of not only experiencing this play I've been obsessing over, but experiencing it from the side of the stage! Apparently, for this particular play, there are 26 on-stage seats (3 rows on the left, 2 on the right--if you're looking at the stage), literally just feet away from the action (think having a chair 8 feet off to the side of Isaac, or just behind Taylor's piano). And even cooler than that, the cast is mixed in with you; any time a cast member is not in a specific scene, instead of heading backstage, they head to a designated seat mixed in with the other audience seats on stage. So not only are you experiencing the play from the stage, you're sitting mixed in with the actors/actresses. Pretty cool!

Here's where things take a turn. I returned from school that day, still on a high over getting the last stage seat, with the intention of further researching stage seats and their awesomeness. I went back to my confirmation email to go to the theatre website and check out some shots of the stage when I saw it--in my crazy, sleep deprived excitement, I've somehow managed to purchase a ticket to the BROADWAY version rather than the TOUR version, quite possibly the biggest OOPS I've ever singlehandedly been responsible for. I kid you not, folks, I managed to accidentally spend $50 on a ticket to NY instead of FL, the complete opposite pole of the country!

After a day of freaking out, re-reading things over and over trying to make it somehow have been an error in reading rather than an error in judjment, it's clear the mistake is mine. This day is followed by another crazy day where I immediately post the ticket for sale, drive home for Thanksgiving break, and somehow decide in that 2 hour drive that it is reasonable for me to just fly to NY instead. Ha. So I went back, threw out an apology, and stated that I was going to try to go to the show. Two days and two angry parents later, I decided that really, going to NYC alone in December is probably not the best plan for me. I legitimately gave up on going to NYC and set out to sell the ticket (which, btw, hasn't gotten me very far--any takers??)

At this point I've wasted $50, proved to my parents that I am more crazy than they already knew, and had within my grasp and lost a pretty amazing seat. I don't give up so easily. I decided the simple solution was to sell the NYC ticket and purchase a ticket to Tampa for real this time. Slight problem--all of the good seats in Tampa are gone, and having had a stage seat in my hand, as well as my original rationalizing being that I could go if I had a great seat, it hardly seems worth it. So I dive into backup mode: I started thinking about futher off shows that have good seats left or have yet to go on sale, and what times of the year I have time off where I would be able to travel to see this show (And here I recognize another way Hanson has spoiled me--I now have a craving to constantly be up close and personal at shows). Spring break seems the most reasonable, and I find that the show will be in Cleveland, OH over my spring break.

Again, I decided if I could get an amazing seat, the trip would be worth it. After doing lots of research into the whole on-stage seating setup, I think I've got a good idea of what the best seats are. So lo and behold, I pull up on-stage tickets for Cleveland, and I somehow managed to pull up the exact ticket I had more or less idolizing in my head and seeing as unattainable, the one that in my opinion (speculation, of course, since I haven't experienced it) is the best seat on stage and elsewhere, for that matter. This seat is front row and the absolute closest to the front of the stage. After a little more cautious investigation this time, I finally do have a truly amazing seat and a more reasonable plan (though I do still have a NYC ticket I need to get rid of!!). Cleveland, here I come!

Here is a seating chart:



The seat I have now is AA4. And for swooning purposes, I just have to add that AA2 is where the lovely Kyle Riabko will be sitting (that is, when he's not wowing the audience on the actual stage, which is most of the time I'm sure). The seat I originally had for NYC was AA13. Translation--significant upgrade, and all is well again.



End Note: No worries, this is still a Hanson blog; don't expect this to be a regular occurrence. In March, though...expect some swoonage. Also, anyone wanna roadtrip, Hmm? March 6th?