By Michael Gsovski
The Daily Northwestern
Leaning against his rolled-up sleeping bag in a packed McCormick Auditorium in Norris, Austin Perry said there was one thing that led him and his two “compatriots” to spend the night on the Norris lawn Monday night.
“Pure dedication,” the Weinberg freshman said. “Now that I’m here and I see the hungry eyes of this mass of people, I really feel validated.”
Perry and his friends were first in line to get tickets for a Flight of the Conchords concert sponsored by A&O Production’s speakers program. The concert will be held March 6 in Cahn Auditorium.
The band, which bills itself as a digi-folk parody duo, stars in a self-titled HBO show. One thousand tickets went on sale at 10:30 a.m. Monday. By 11:15 a.m., they had sold out.
Earlier this quarter, 600 tickets to B.J. Novak’s Feb. 16 A&O performance set a record, selling out Ryan Family Auditorium in 45 minutes.
A&O chairman Alex White was impressed by the reaction, noting that the last student to receive her ticket arrived at Norris at 8:15 a.m., more than two hours before tickets went on sale.
“I called back the chairman when I was a freshman and other than (acts like) Kanye or Jeff Tweedy, tickets always sold out in the first week or couple of days, not in the first hour or few hours,” the SESP senior said.
“I think that when we had Girl Talk here in January, that quick sellout got people to change their mind-set.”
A&O had to open McCormick to seat those in line, a tactic also used during the sale of Kanye West tickets in 2005. Many students took the time sitting in one seat to attentively work despite the early hour.
In an e-mail later Monday, White said those caught scalping would be fined up to $5,000 under state law and WildCARDs would be checked at the door.
Students kept streaming into McCormick until 9:15 a.m., leaving many grumbling. One group of students complained that those who slept overnight had cut to the front of the line.
“We got here around 6:15,” Music freshman Dave Sumberg said. “There was one person here who had been there for 45 minutes already and then there were the (expletive) who slept. They walked right up to the front of the line. They were like, ‘We slept.'”
But Sumberg said he thought that the many students who switched places with friends, like Communication sophomore Ginger Gonzalez, in order to go to class were justified.
Gonzalez swapped places with her friend at 9:45 a.m. to attend lecture. She said there was no alternative for obtaining tickets.
“I knew this would be really crazy,” Gonzalez said. “The Facebook group already had 900 people, so I thought I’d better come when Norris opened.”
Those in attendance had one thing in common – love for the band’s music and their acts. Many of those in line said they heard about Flight of the Conchords well before A&O announced the concert and, after prodding, could name their favorite song.
Excited murmuring swept through the crowd when an A&O member announced the actress Kristen Schaal (Communication ’00), who plays the band’s lone fan Mel on the HBO show, would be the surprise guest of the concert.
White said this was particularly significant because Schaal is a NU alumna who performed with the Mee-Ow improv troupe. Current members will be opening for Flight of the Conchords next week.
“We couldn’t have written the script any better,” White said. “Having Mee-ow and then Mel, who’s a Mee-ow alumni and one of the main characters in the show, it’s going to be a night to remember.”
