Monday, October 31st, 2011

Are you one of those people who’s totally bummed that you don’t have tickets to see Conan at the Beacon this week?

If you’re insanely devoted with lots of free time on your hands, I have good news for you — you might be able to get in via standby seating.

I spoke to a few people lined up near the theater around 5:30 pm and got the details. It’s not for the faint of heart, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Apparently something like 100 wristbands will be made available each morning. The wristbands don’t guarantee you a seat, but they do get you a place in the standby line.

So what time do you have to line up for the wristbands? Today people started showing up around 6:30 am — at 6:53 the line was about 15 people deep. Those that I spoke to today said they expect people to start lining up around 5:00 am tomorrow.

Oh, and by the way, the wristbands aren’t handed out until 10:00 am.

So, to recap, you’re going to need to wait in the cold November morning air for somewhere between four and five hours just to get a wristband. Once you have said wristband, you’re entitled to line up again around 5:00 pm on the standby line. The bands are numbered, i.e. the first person in line at the crack of dawn gets #1, etc., and that’s the order you line up in at 5:00 pm.

Once “regular” ticketed audience members are seated (they start getting seated around 4:45), a limited number of people from the standby line will be admitted on a space-available basis. Simply having a wristband does not seem to guarantee you entry. The people near the front of the line were confident their efforts would be rewarded with a seat, but they were dubious about anyone not near the front making it in.

Like I said, where there’s a will, there’s a way… but you need to be a seriously hardcore member of Team Coco in order to make it happen.

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Tags: 2124 Broadway, Beacon Theater, Beacon Theatre, celebrity, Conan O'Brien, New York City, NYC, Team Coco, Upper West Side, UWS