Post to the Host

Host Garrison Keillor answers your questions about life, love, writing, authors, and of course, A Prairie Home Companion.

Send GK Your Question »

November 13, 2006 | 5 Comments

Post to the Host:
I PROTEST! Many of us here in the Philadelphia area have been waiting for YEARS for a live performance of PHC to be held here in our area. We faithfully listen to your show, we have seen the movie, we have come out to previous events such as the show about "Guys" a few years back held at the Academy of Music and the show with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Music Cente r. But, alas, we have never seen a live performance of PHC.

Now, just the other day I found out during a local NPR station fund drive that PHC is coming to do a live performance on January 27, 2007 but the TICKETS ARE ALREADY ALL SOLD OUT! The event, to my knowledge, and I pay attention for these things, was never advertised. That means that the only people offered the opportunity to come and who bought all the tickets are the season subscribers to the Kimmel Center, where the event will be held.

Wo uld you PLEASE, for those of us who are above average, yet are not Kimmel Center subscribers, consider holding your live performance at a larger venue so that we "above average Joes and Josephines" can have the chance to come.

Literally, I was crushed by this news, as were my parents, who also listen to you faithfully and were also at the previous Philadelphia events. Either a larger venue or could you please come back to Philadelphia again next year? There are many here who love your show and we feel as though we have been cheated out of the opportunity to see it in January 2007. On behalf of all of us in the Philadelphia area who identify with the Tolleruds and Norwegian bachelor farmers, etc., PLEASE, PLEASE consider our plight and what may be done about it.

Thanks so much for reading and thanks for enriching our lives with yours.

Judy
Philadelphia, PA

I agree, Judy, and I'm so sorry. The arrangements surrounding these tour broadcasts are worked out by our crack logistical staff and involve pages and pages of details and codicils and warranties and addenda, more than I can understand, but you're right: the tickets were offered first to Kimmel subscribers, then a considerable number were offered to the general public (advertised in various ways by the Kimmel) and those tickets went quickly. The show naturally prefers to play to an audience of listeners and that is why PHC is never broadcast before closed groups — i.e. the annual convention of morticians — and that is why we normally go through the local public radio stadion. I guess that the Kimmel is the promoter of this broadcast and so they advertised it as they normally would. But I regret that. We did a broadcast once where the first section of seats was sold to corporate people who had no idea what the show was and who came drunk and got drunker and sat there yelling at people on stage. A memorable day. An audience made up of longtime PHC listeners is a tough audience — they've heard a lot, they have high expectations — and I'd rather work hard for them than work in front of a crowd that's thinking, "When do the dancing girls come on? Where's the comedian?"