Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 10, 1993 TAG: 9302100284
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JIM STRATTON NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium
PRINCE'S W&M TALK SRO PDQ
The message, in perfect phone mail etiquette, gets right to the point."There will be no additional Charter Day tickets available. Thank you. End of message. Thank you, goodbye."
Translation: If you want to catch a glimpse of Prince Charles when he visits the College of William and Mary this weekend, read the paper or watch the news, because you probably won't be getting into William and Mary Hall on Saturday to see him. All 10,000 tickets for the event have been gobbled up.
Callers to the college's tercentenary hot line were greeted by the information Monday, the first day tickets for the prince's speech were supposed to be available to the general public.
Charles is coming to William and Mary to help celebrate the school's 300th anniversary. His visit, which includes a speech Saturday morning at William and Mary Hall, is the highlight of the school's celebration.
Until Monday, the tickets had been reserved for members of the college community. But the demand from that group, school officials said, turned out to be overwhelming. The tickets were gone before the public phone line opened up. "The interest was unprecedented in college history for a Charter Day event," university spokesman Ray Betzner said.
Betzner said the college's events staff worked through the weekend crunching the numbers on how many tickets had been requested by members of the college community and invited guests. When all was said and done, there simply weren't any left for the general public. In fact, said staffers at the Tercentenary Events Office, even some students missed out because they waited too long to reserve seats.
Last week, college officials half-jokingly warned of a possible black market springing up around extra Prince Charles tickets. Several years ago, when actress Glenn Close spoke at commencement, enterprising college students began scalping those tickets. As of Monday afternoon, however, there were no reports of illicit ticket sales.