Patterico's Pontifications

5/6/2007

Hollywood Bowl Opens

Filed under: General,Music — Patterico @ 7:58 am



I don’t spend many mornings in Hollywood, but I’m here drinking a large corporate coffee (I like it very much, thanks!) at the Starbucks near Hollywood and Highland, correcting transcripts for a trial I start tomorrow. My car is parked next to Heifetz’s star on the Walk of Fame; on the short stroll to the Starbucks I passed stars belonging to Ingrid Bergman and Charles Chaplin. Parking is free and plentiful along Hollywood Boulevard this early on a Sunday.

A wristband on my wrist says 27115, meaning I am 115th in line to get Hollywood Bowl tickets for the season.

I only had to get there at about 6:45 to accomplish this. It was about a 39 minute drive from Rancho Palos Verdes. Cruise control the whole way on the freeways, coming off only to make the transition from the 110 to the 101.

I’ll buy dollar seats for the family for the whole season — at least the classical concerts that we want to see. I’ll get about a dozen concerts and a couple of parking passes. A summer full of classical music under the stars, and the whole thing will cost less than a hundred dollars.

There aren’t many reasons to love L.A., but the Hollywood Bowl is one of them.

UPDATE: Commenter Viktor got his seats over the Internet. I should have done that. I had thought the cheapest seats were available only in person, but I was wrong. In fact, they go so quickly over the Internet that, for most shows, they’re not available any other way — because if you go in person, they’re already gone.

18 Responses to “Hollywood Bowl Opens”

  1. not many reasons to love LA

    1) The sunshine.
    2) The seabreeze.
    3) Little restaurants in stripmalls that serve authentic food from places most people can’t even find on a map.
    4) The food is often served by young women from those places.
    5) Hotrods.
    6) The people are the most diverse mix you’ll find anywhere. They get along together better than anyone has a right to expect.
    7) Nothing wrong with the Hollywood Bowl

    The Palos Verdes Penninsula is one of the most beautiful and exclusive places to live in the World.

    Get a life, Patterico.

    reddog (e2d901)

  2. Oh, there are a few positives. And I love where I live. But much of the city is a pit. Too much traffic, crime, and pollution.

    Patterico (a9e862)

  3. You could have bought your tix some time ago. I’ve got tix for 10 shows already in hand. When the mailers come out for the “Buy 5 get 1 Free” or the “Make the H-wood Bowl a part of your life” or whatever, you can order tix online or by phone. No need to “subscribe” to a series, although they surely make it sound like you do.

    Tip for the “July 4” concerts: children’s tix are 1/2 price. We buy an extra child seat so we can spread out a bit.

    Viktor (861935)

  4. Viktor,

    That wouldn’t work for me. I don’t think the dollar seats are available — and even if they are, the service charges mean they wouldn’t be a dollar.

    Patterico (edd0a9)

  5. Way to go, Patterico. Love the life you’ve got, and I hope your family enjoys the Hollywood Bowl tickets.

    DRJ (c6d1df)

  6. Well, Patrick, you and I don’t see eye-to-eye on many things about L.A., but I’m delighted to see that we both love the Hollywood Bowl!

    My daughter pretends to fall asleep on Mozart night, but I know she loves it, too!

    We’re selective (we pick just a handful of nights every summer). I didn’t get around to writing one of my anecdotal blog entries last summer (we saw “Tosca,” Hilary Hahn playing Mendelssohn, and Shostakovich #5), but I’m going to do one this summer, for sure.

    Happy listening!

    Tim McGarry (6b6486)

  7. Well, I’m not much of a city man myself, but that does sound nice. I’ve only been to LA once, and I was strongly reminded of Edward Abbey:

    . . . I have not seen the fabulous city on the Pacific shore. Perhaps I never will. There’s something in the prospect southwest from Barstow which makes one hesitate. Although recently, driving my own truck, I did succeed in penetrating as close as San Bernardino. But was hurled back by what appeared to be clouds of mustard gas rolling in from the west on a very broad front. Thus failed again. It may be however that Los Angeles will come to me. Will come to all of us, as it must (they say) to all men.

    To each his own.

    Russell (13a51a)

  8. Viktor,

    You were right and I was wrong. I got to the window and most dollar seats were gone. It ended up costing me much more than it would have cost over the Internet. Live and learn.

    Patterico (4f642a)

  9. Last year I thought the problem was that I got there the day after opening day. Now I see that the problem was savvy buyers like Viktor buying tickets over the Web.

    Patterico (57d2e3)

  10. I should have been more clear: the dollar seats are available, and the service charge is something like $20 for the entire order. You probably spent close to $10 just on gas to get there. I got several shows in the “$1-nosebleed-let’s-move-closer-after-it-starts” section last year. And a few in a little closer.

    Memorable moment: For the “Sound of Music”, my wife took my daughter and had to leave early, thus leading to my 5yr old daughter to scream and cry in true disappointment “But I wanted to see the NAZI’s!!!” If you imagine this as a looooong wail, you get the picture.

    I know, I know, they make you THINK that the mailer is for subscriptions only, but it’s not. To be fair, maybe the mailers are for people getting a minimum of shows (I honestly don’t read the small print too closely on these things — you’re the lawyer, not me!), but you are beyond whatever limit may exist. I will point out that you can only order 10 shows this way.

    Viktor (861935)

  11. What’s worse is that most of the $1 seats will be empty during the entire show.

    Viktor (861935)

  12. Viktor,

    What was the first day that tickets could be ordered online, if you know?

    Patterico (a91dfb)

  13. I don’t remember, but my order was processed on March 11. March 1 would be a good guess.

    There was a big ad in the LA Times. Do you subscribe? 🙂

    Viktor (861935)

  14. Cute.

    No, I knew you could get tickets online. I just didn’t know that the dollar seats were available that way — or that the service charge applied to the whole order and not each ticket.

    I figure my ignorance cost me about $120. An expensive lesson, but one I won’t soon forget.

    Patterico (24d2c0)

  15. Also, the $1 seem to have risen to $2. At least on the shows I was interested in. Shouldn’t someone protest this?

    Regardless of the ticket cost, the HB is a great time. No Bugs Bunny this year 🙁

    Viktor (861935)

  16. Does the Hollywood Bowl have a website? If so, keep track of events there via the site.

    Alan Kellogg (f0bff0)

  17. THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE SQUAWK SQUAWK

    krazy kagu (e70d3d)

  18. Los Angeles is easy to love, but L.A. ( or “El Lay”) is not. It really is the people. Think of the crassest, short-fingered vulgarian you can imagine – travelling elsewhere and reviled as being “from L.A.” – well those are the people who MOVED here and ruined it. I hope William Mulholland is roasting in the pit of hell right now – we were perfectly happy as a high desert burg unable to sustain a population in excess of 100k persons.

    P.S. – What? No mention of Pacific Dining Car? Cicada? You Savages!

    Californio (0dac36)


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