By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 3, 2002
The Royal Itinerary of the Hon. S. Copps
Tickets for Queen Elizabeth’s royal touchdown in Hamilton next week are gone. Half an hour after the Copps Coliseum box office opened yesterday morning, they were taping the signs on the doors. “General public tickets no longer available for Queen’s visit.”
British Monarchy Merch
A lineup of about 150 people was waiting for the box office to open at 10 a.m. Limited to four tickets each, they scooped up the first 600, and the remaining 400 available ducats were gone shortly after.
Although Heritage Minister Sheila Copps’s office estimated “at least 6,000” seats would be available for the Oct. 10 event, box office manager Dianne Zemba said she was limited to “a bit more than 1,000 tickets,” all in the upper bowl of the 17,500-seat arena.
Copps’s advisor, Terry Whitehead, said he was surprised only 1,000 seats were available. “My first blush when I talked to you (earlier in the morning) was 6,000, that’s what my expectations were personally. Obviously I was wrong.”
Seating for the event is expected to be about 16,000. The sole purpose of the visit is the presentation of new colours to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Hamilton reserve regiment of which the Queen is the colonel-in-chief. The Argylls were allotted 6,400 seats, invited elementary school children and seniors get 6,000, and multicultural groups and VIPs take 1,000, with the remainder distributed by Heritage Canada. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)
Hamilton, Sheila Copps, Royal visit, Liberal, Hamilton East, Dominic Agostino, Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip, royalty