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.