Phantom off to flying start as early as early birds queue for seats
HONG KONG records were broken yesterday when tickets for Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom Of The Opera, billed as one of the biggest musicals yet to come to the territory, went on sale for the first time.
The queues outside the Hong Kong Cultural Centre were the longest yet seen, with people arriving before dawn to ensure they got seats for the show. By the time the box office opened at 9 am there were 600 people waiting outside the doors. By 11 am there were 750 people queuing for tickets for the show which runs for three months from June 16 next year.
The line extended from the centre's Star Ferry entrance to the Hong Kong Museum of Arts. Most people queuing were teenagers; many faced a wait of over four hours.
The last time the Cultural Centre saw queues of this scale was in 1992 when 300 people queued for tickets for a Jacky Cheung Hok-yau concert.
At City Hall's booking office, people started queuing at 4.30 am. By the time the box office opened at 10 am, there were more than 300 people. By noon, 9,000 tickets had been sold.
While people braved the queues, 20 telephone booking and six fax lines were kept constantly busy. By 6 pm yesterday, 16,000 of the 157,000 available tickets had been sold. Tickets cost between $250 and $750.
The musical is being brought to Hong Kong by Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group which has spent around $20 million on giving Phantom Of The Opera lavish media exposure.
'We aimed to ensure the news that Phantom was coming would reach everyone in Hong Kong,' said Fiona Thomas, its marketing manager.
The Really Useful Group denies it will make a large profit from the show. At least $8 million will be spent on bringing in three Boeing 747-loads of equipment. A spokesman said to make the show profitable, the theatre would have to be full every night.
But already there is talk of plans to bring Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express, Jesus Christ Superstar and Sunset Boulevard to the territory.
