Hamilton, the most hotly anticipated show of the season (the year? The decade? OK, we'll stop), is back on in Sydney after the season was rudely interrupted by the city's second city-wide lockdown. But the cross-cultural phenomenon that meshes hip-hop, R'n'B and jazz with revolutionary American history, isn't exactly a payday meal – one ticket to a showing at Sydney's Lyric Theatre averages $150-$180 ordinarily, with the steepest tickets priced at $250 each.
Unless, of course, you're the lucky winner of the show's weekly $10 ticket lottery.
Timing is crucial: each Friday at 12.01am for the next weeks' performance period, a select number of $10 tickets will be released. Winners are drawn each Thursday between 1-6pm, but you'll only have one hour to claim tickets from the time that you're notified before they're offered to another hopeful. You can enter for one or two seats – and there's absolutely no reason not to enter for two every time and bless your theatre-date-to-be with the show of a lifetime. It's easy to get excited about all this, but don't just enter willy-nilly: winning tickets are non-transferable. If you can’t use your tickets, no one else can, so you'll be depriving someone of the utter magic of seeing Hamilton come to life if you can't attend for some reason.
To enter, you’ll need to get the TodayTix app on your phone – you can get it on all iOS and Android devices in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
Just beware: you're facing some steep odds, if the lottery's popularity in previous showings on Broadway and in Chicago is anything to go by. As reported by Time Out New York, Broadway Direct estimated that there were 10,000 entries for each performance in 2016, which put odds of winning at about 1 in 400.
You can find the entry form here. Godspeed.