That’s the ticket ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ may be sold out, but there


are canny ways to get hold of tickets.Kate Lloyd tries them out. Illustration Lauren Chalmers


IT’S 6PM ON A TUESDAY and I’m standing in the returns queue at the Palace Theatre on Cambridge Circus. Around me, Harry Potter fans wait anxiously to see if they can get a last- minute ticket to see ‘The Cursed Child’ tonight. The show’s officially sold out until 2017, but the 12 people here still have hope. They include a 23-year-old German with a ‘Deathly Hallows’ tattoo who already has tickets for November but ‘can’t wait until then’, a ten-year-old who’s read the entire series twice and a 24-year-old girl who got a ticket for herself but not her boyfriend and now feels guilty about it. While I’m unsuccessful on this


occasion, a few days later I manage to get tickets for both Part I and Part II. And I don’t spend the £1,000 they’re rumoured to be selling for online. If you want to get tickets too, you’re going to need a bit of patience and a lot of luck. But it is possible. Here are my tips.


4 1


The Friday Forty Every Friday, the show’s


organisers release 40 tickets


for each performance the following week in a randomised ballot. You need to scroll down to the bottom of the ‘tickets’ page for the countdown, which turns into a ‘book now’ button at 1pm. It’s worth trying, but seven members of Time Out staff have given this a go over the past few weeks – it is confusing and we’ve all been unsuccessful.


2


The Wishlist Fans who don’t have


tickets can add their name


to an online wishlist. It means you’ll be notified when tickets that match your availability are returned. It only takes a couple of minutes to sign up and it sounds like a good idea. However, ‘The Cursed Child’ staff at the Palace Theatre told me that there are already hundreds of thousands of people on the list, so your chances are slim.


Time Out London July 5 – 11 2016 3


Turn up early on show day Out of the 16 people originally in the queue for returns


on the day I tried, four got their hands on tickets: one pair


and two singles. Those people had started queuing between 4.30pm and 5pm. I also spoke to a number of people who managed to get tickets for shows in forthcoming weeks by walking into the box office and taking tickets kept back for guestlist attendees who had cancelled.


34


Touts You can only collect ‘The


Cursed Child’ tickets from


the Palace Theatre if you have ID to prove you bought them officially, but there are people selling their spare tickets to people in the returns queue after they’ve picked them up – and they’re only a bit more expensive. I met a woman asking for £400 for her two tickets to Parts I and II. I also met a guy selling two tickets to Part I for £60 each.


try checking the Nimax site every now and then. I got my tickets when a bunch were


5 dumped online without warning


for both last-minute and advance show dates. It’s also worth searching on social media for people talking about tickets: I found out about the dump via a tip-off on Twitter. I also talked to someone outside the Palace Theatre who had bagged tickets for Parts I and II in the same


way. Good luck!■  www.nimaxtheatres.com/palace-theatre/ harry_potter_and_the_cursed_child


The Nimax


Theatreswebsite It sounds obvious, but


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