John Katsilometes is sold on discounted tickets for local college students who’ll fill up seats

Thursday, April 26, 2007 | 7:04 a.m.

Before making the following announcement, Wynn Las Vegas spokeswoman Jennifer Dunne wants to make something perfectly clear: "Monty Python's Spamalot" is clopping along just fine.

Now, the announcement: College students in Southern Nevada - that means all students at UNLV, Nevada State College at Henderson, Community College of Southern Nevada and even the University of Phoenix - age 18 or older will receive a special day-of-performance ticket rate each Tuesday.

Beginning next week, student prices for the 10 p.m. performances on Tuesdays will be $35 for the best available seats in the orchestra section, and $25 for the best available seats in the mezzanine level. Those rates are usually $69-$99 for orchestra seats and $49-$69 for the mezzanine.

No time has been set for the release of the tickets, but it will be a daylong offer open until the show starts or sells out.

Dunne divulged this information unexpectedly Wednesday morning with a call into Dave Berns' "State of Nevada" program on KNPR 88.9-FM, which featured myself and the R-J's Mike Weatherford as guests. We were talking ticket prices and a caller identifying herself as "Jennifer from Wynn Las Vegas" called the show. We knew this Jennifer, who explained that often producers are reluctant to formally announce such ticket specials to the media because the resulting coverage is typically negative - that the show must be struggling to offer such great deals (what we can call the "Hairspray Syndrome"). But as Dunne said during a phone conversation later Wednesday, even shows that are doing well have performances with good available seats. Such is the case with the late Tuesday performances of "Spamalot ." We can hope this outreach to locals is part of a trend that is not yet dead.

NoteMart

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