Tickets to Tony Award-winning Hamilton sell for jaw-dropping US$6,000-plus
Last performance as Alexander Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the Broadway show that won 11 Tonys on Sunday night, has fans willing to pay big money for seats
.png?itok=arIb17P0)
Tickets to the smash-hit Broadway musical Hamilton, which just picked up 11 Tony Awards, are selling for record-breaking prices exceeding US$6,000 apiece.
Fans are paying big money to see the July 9 final performance of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show’s creator and current leading actor. Since debuting in July 2015, the musical focused on America’s founding fathers has won fans as high-profile as US President Barack Obama and swiftly become Broadway’s most popular.
“We’re calling Hamilton the cultural equivalent of the Super Bowl,” said a spokesman for the ticket resale website StubHub, referring to the annual American football championship.
Miranda – who wrote and composed the musical – announced on June 2 he would perform the lead, Alexander Hamilton, for the last time, taking a break to devote time to other projects.
It’s not the final performance of the musical itself, which will run on Broadway at least until 2017, but the star power of Miranda has fans clamouring for seats.
Tickets have already gone for US$6,500 on StubHub and US$6,600 on another website, TiqIQ. The average ticket cost for Miranda’s last show is US$1,747 on StubHub andUS$4,798 on TiqIQ.
Some tickets went on sale for US$14,800 on StubHub, though buyers have yet to drop that kind of money.
Miranda has repeatedly spoken out against the ticket resale system, which allows companies to use software capable of buying up large numbers of tickets and then reselling them at inflated prices.
Producers recently decided to raise the base prices of the best tickets to between US$475 and US$849.
At the same time, they reduced the price of tickets that normally sell for between US$21 and US$46 to US$10 apiece, which fans can try to buy through a lottery system.
Hamilton was nominated for a record-setting 16 Tony Awards, which are given out to recognise achievement in Broadway productions.
