J.K. Rowling fans in the United States were both terrified and giddy with excitement when the author announced she’d be making just one U.S. stop this year. The Harry Potter scribe would be promoting her upcoming book, The Casual Vacancy, at New York’s Lincoln Center to a crowd of just over 1,000. There’s just one problem now – tickets accidentally went on sale early and now the highly anticipated event is oversold.
Little, Brown and Company, the publisher putting out the new book, arranged for the event to take place in the Jazz at Lincoln Center theater on October 16th. Rowling is set to be interviewed on stage by author Ann Patchett, answer a few audience questions, and sign copies of The Casual Vacancy for everyone with a ticket.
And therein lies the problem.
Tickets for the event were publicized as going on sale 10 a.m. on September 10th but went on sale 12 hours early, at 10 p.m., on Lincoln Center’s website only. They quickly sold out but the message didn’t get to the box office. Sales took place in person the following morning before the glitch was realized. Hypable reports some fans were also able to purchase tickets online again that afternoon.
According to Hypable, the Jazz at Lincoln Center website previously posted this message:
Due to technical difficulties on the ticketing website, tickets for the J. K. Rowling event on 10/16/12 were made available prematurely at 10 pm on September 9th. Tickets then went on sale at the previously announced time of 10 am on September 10th. Jazz at Lincoln Center is in the process of investigating how this occurred and what arrangements may be made to honor each ticket purchased, and will provide an update as quickly as possible. Neither JK Rowling nor Little Brown and Company are responsible for this situation. Jazz at Lincoln Center apologizes for any inconvenience.
But as of 11 a.m. Tuesday morning it reads:
Due to a security breach, tickets for the J. K. Rowling event on 10/16/12 were made available prematurely at 10 pm on September 9th. Tickets then went on sale at the previously announced time of 10 am on September 10th. Jazz at Lincoln Center is in the process of investigating how this occurred and what arrangements may be made to honor each ticket purchased, and will provide an update as quickly as possible. Neither JK Rowling nor Little Brown and Company are responsible for this situation. Jazz at Lincoln Center apologizes for any inconvenience.
Yikes. I don’t even want to imagine that this actually happened but could a Rowling fan have made the early sale happen to insure they got a ticket? A “security breach” could mean many things of course, it could be completely unrelated to the Rowling event, but it’s a bad thing for fans either way.
And those fans are, quite rightly, upset. Many waited days on line to get these tickets and there’s no guarantee they’ll be honored. Though the venue says “arrangements may be made to honor each ticket purchased.” That could mean anything from setting up a separate viewing room for the overflow or moving venues I’d imagine.
We’ll keep you updated if we hear of any changes or otherwise concrete information on the problem.
UPDATE: We told you we’d let you know if there were any new developments. Here’s what Hypable reports.
We just got off the phone with the Lincoln Center and have solid answers. We were read aloud an internal e-mail stating that the event will move to the David H. Koch Theater at 20 Lincoln Center. ALL tickets purchased September 9 and 10 WILL be honored. The move to the larger theater is to accommodate the larger-than-planned audience. Obviously, you will not have the same exact seat that’s currently noted on your ticket.
Big sigh of relief.
(via Hypable)
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