Return of the Living Dead

The show this weekend marks two things of note:  the NMJ Guest is none other than George Romero (the man responsible for the concept of the modern Zombie) and the return of Luke Burbank after a year and a half absence from the WWDTM panel.

Romero was the perfect guest for our Halloween broadcast and the show took a few gruesome turns – apt considering the air date, dontcha think?  In the interview, Romero talks a bit about whether zombies should run and why his never did (it has something to do with weak ankles…) We’ll see how much of the unsavory subject matter Danforth allows on the air.  Check it out Saturday via broadcast or podcast.

Luke’s return to our Chase Bank stage comes right after the WWDTM crew returned from their historic (and hysterical) Carnegie Hall debut – in the pre-show warm up, Peter let the audience know he felt like Dorothy returning from Oz – warm and fuzzy in the Chicago embrace but kind of hoping another Twister might come along soon.  It seems the glitz of New York City left an impression on our group.  Luke stepped up to the plate and it seemed he had never left the fold.  I’ve always been a big fan of Burbank and it’s nice to have him haunting the panel again.

As the show has become increasingly the most recession-proof live show in the Loop, I’ve run into a couple of interesting challenges on the ticketing end of things.  More and more people are turning up to tap me for VIP tickets and I’m finding myself both inadvertently overselling the house and hoping people don’t show up so I can shoe-horn everyone in and clamping down on the number of VIP tickets I’m able to dole out.  I even had to tell a prominent WBEZ Board Member that I couldn’t accommodate a request for tickets!

QUICK BITE

I get a lot of requests for tickets after the show is sold out – I suppose it’s human nature to ask, especially if you really want to see Sagal’s shining face in person.  The standard answer goes like this:

“We have a ‘first come, first served’ waiting list that starts sign up at 6PM the evening of the show.  No guarantees but I try…”

Most people get this straight away.  I am, however, dealing with listeners of NPR so sometimes they just can’t help themselves:

“Let me get this straight.  You are suggesting that I purchase 3 airline tickets, book a hotel for at least 2 nights, rent a cab, pay for meals, miss one day of work all for the slight chance of getting into your show?  Can you imagine the disappointment on my son’s face if we can’t get in to the show? (which is the entire reason for our trip to Chicago).  You are honestly telling me that you’d try . . . .

Surely you have some kind of historical data on how many tickets are sold to those on the waiting list.  Perhaps that would help in our decision making.  Forgive me, but “No guarantees but I try . . . ” just isn’t much to go on.

I spend a good portion of every day answering these types of inquiries and rarely get a request for more than is what is pretty obvious – that is, buy your tickets before it sells out – so my natural snark begins to creep up on me when confronted like this. I maintained a pleasant demeanor and hit ‘reply’:

“Actually, I wasn’t suggesting anything at all.

We have 522 seats in the auditorium. Tickets go on sale app. six weeks in advance. For November 12, I have sold 522 tickets. Do people cancel at the last minute? Sure. Do we have walkup waiting list folks that I manage to get into the show? Yup. Can I give you any kind of guarantee that if you spend all that time, energy and money to come to Chicago solely to see our show that you will get a seat on November 12? I wish I could but I can’t and it wouldn’t be responsible to do so.

If a suggestion is what you’re after, I’d suggest that you check our online store for tickets, secure your seats in advance, then book your trip. It’s a very popular show and sells out nearly every Chicago taping sometimes a month in advance.

I vetted the reply before hitting send with Breeze to make sure it didn’t sound snotty. She felt it was appropriate and measured. My stalwart fan’s response?

Now that’s an answer I can sink my teeth into! Thank you for spending the few extra minutes it took to more clearly answer my original questions. That’s really all I was after . . . just a thoughtful, thorough answer that might help one of your loyal NPR listeners (and supporter, I might add) to make a well-informed decision. That’s what NPR is all about, after all!

I love my job.

Come see the show!!