Something to sing and dance about: Summer Festival tickets hot commodity

The first week of ticket sales for the 2010 Charlottetown Festival proved busy at the Confederation Centre of the Arts box office.
Theatre patrons bought more than 7,500 tickets for Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, Anne of Green Gables-The Musical™ and Hairspray during the one week $25 ticket sale last week.
Most of the tickets, 92 per cent, were bought by Islanders in keeping with the campaign that was geared primarily for the local market. The new lineup for 2010 also proved popular. Fifty-three per cent of the tickets sold were for The Buddy Holly Story, 35 per cent were for Hairspray, and 11 per cent were for Anne.
The early popularity of The Buddy Holly Story does not surprise Wade Lynch, associate artistic director of The Charlottetown Festival. Lynch acted in the musical in Ontario four years ago and saw the potential it could have for The Charlottetown Festival.
"The play satisfies everything we've been working toward for the Festival in the last few years: a show with music that is familiar to our audience (Islanders, we've learned, love shows that feature songs they can sing along to!) and is story-driven with compelling characters and situations," he says. "Everybody loves Buddy Holly."
The Charlottetown Festival runs June 17 through October 9 in 2010.