News
|
||||
|
Shakespeare
drama festival: Hamlet in an omelette With
the venue being changed from the B.M.I.C.H. to the Bishop’s
College auditorium, the seating capacity too was reduced from 1,500
to 715. As a result of the large crowds, organisers only began issuing the tickets from about 3 pm. The balcony tickets were sold out when it got to about ten people in the queue just some fifteen minutes after the office opened, reportedly because those ahead purchased tickets in bulk. Soon after an announcement was made that balcony tickets for both nights were sold out. This caused angry students who had stood in line for more than three hours to protest and pick fights with others in the queue, a bystander said. She alleged that while a girl at the top of the queue had purchased some 90 tickets for the finals (both boys and girls), she noticed the boy next in line purchasing about 40 tickets for the boys final. “It was really unfair on the part of the organisers to allow them to buy tickets in such large quantities, when we couldn’t even buy a single ticket, having stood in the queue since 12 noon”, she lamented., Furthermore, with the balcony able to accommodate only 175 people, soon after the first two ticket sales, most of the tickets were sold out, said another disgruntled supporter. A parent having come all the way from Kandy to get tickets to see her son perform said she took leave from work that day to come to Colombo to buy tickets. “After queuing up for hours for a ticket I went back to Kandy disappointed. The organisers had sold the tickets in bulk to individuals. They bluntly said tickets were all sold out you can go back home now”, she said. The end result of all this was that many genuine viewers were left in the lurch, unable to purchase tickets. Many youngsters with the intention of capitalising on this disorganised state of affairs were reported to have made a quick buck by allegedly printing counterfeit tickets and selling them at inflated rates. While the genuine tickets were priced at Rs. 250 these scheming youths were seen selling the counterfeits to clamouring students at Rs. 400, some witnesses said. The co-organisers of the competition -- Colombo North Rotary Club member Aravinda Kumar said of the 175 balcony tickets, they sold only 100 tickets reserving 75 seats for the cast and the crew. He denied charges of bulk ticket sales to a few and said the maximum number of tickets sold to an individual was 30 and this too was stopped having realised it would be unfair by others standing in the queue. “We heard people were selling counterfeit tickets, therefore we asked the police to check the tickets and take action against holders of counterfeit tickets, he said. However, Police Fraud Bureau Senior Superintendent H.S. Pinidiya told The Sunday Times they received no complaints about counterfeit tickets from the organisers of the Shakespeare Drama Competition. “If a complaint about forged tickets was received it would have been recorded and the file sent to me within two days. If forged tickets were in circulation it is the duty of the organisers to bring it to our knowledge so that we could take action against the culprits”, the SSP said. “We found more than 100 people with counterfeit tickets. These had been printed in six different shades and the signature on the top was different”, Mr. Kumar said. He
said the organisers were compelled to send out those holding counterfeit
tickets but he was certain no genuine ticket holders were among
them. “This is when the organisers turned up and assuming our tickets were counterfeit ones sent us out of the auditorium”, she charged. Ladies College came first in the girls category of the competition on Friday. The boys’ finals are tonight. |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
