LONG QUEUE FOR SEATS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27626, 5 April 1955, Page 3

LONG QUEUE FOR SEATS

ANNA RUSSELL’S CONCERT

SECOND APPEARANCE ARRANGED

One of the largest queues of theatre patrons ever seen in Christchurch gave an early indication yesterday that one concert by the English musical comedian, Anna Russell, would not meet the demand in Christchurch. Before the 1300 seats for the first concert were sold Miss Russell’s consent to a second concert had been obtained from Wellington, and the seats for. this concert, too, were practically all sold by the end of the day. The bookings for Miss Russell’s concert on Tuesday, April 12, opened at the theatre booking office of the D.I.C. yesterday morning. The queue at one stage stretched from the counter of the booking office, at the Lichfield street end of the store, through the store to Cashel street and along the footpath about 25 yards. A member of the staff of the D.I.C. said there were nearly 300 in the queue shortly before 9.30 a.m., when bookings opened. Most of those in the queue bought enough tickets for large parties. Some offices must have felt a temporary staff shortage in the morning, for young men and women were well represented in the queue. Those who planned to get a good place in the queue by arriving outside the store before 8.30 a.m. found that they had been optimistic—there were scores of patrons ahead of them.

The Christchurch representative of the National Broadcasting Service’s concert section (Mr E. Tomlinson) to Miss Russell, who is in Wellington, by telephone about 9.45 a.m. She agreed to put on an extra concert in Christchurch on Saturday, April 9, the only night on which both Miss Russell and the theatre were available. By 2 p.m. the booking office had sold some 2000 seats for the two concerts, and only scattered single seats were available for the Tuesday concert. “This is another reminder—and they seem to be getting more frequent—of the pressing need lor an adequate town hall in Christchurch,” said the secretary of the Christchurch Civic Music Council (Mr L. F. de Berry) yesterday afternoon. Mr de Berry was asked to comment on the fact that Miss Russell’s appearances in the other three main centres of the country had filled the plans for their respective town halls—seating between 2300 and 2800— soon after bookings opened.