Thousands of tickets go on sale 9am this Thursday at the T/F box office.
The True/False box office is on the corner of Hitt & Broadway, just down the street from Ragtag. If you came last year, you know the space.
So what's this NRT business?
T/F screenings never "sell out," they go NRT — No Reserved Tickets — which means that all the tickets set aside for passholders and Gateway Packets for that film have been claimed. They're not all gone, though. A percentage of seats are saved for people from the Q. Have faith in the Q: this is the T/F motto (more on this later).
If a show does not go NRT during the passholder filmgrab, the remaining allotment will be released as individual tickets at 9am on Thursday, March 3.
The box office will hand out queue numbers to the awaiting masses starting at 8:30am. At 9am the doors will open for the first 50 people. Every 30 minutes or so, another group will be admitted. This means you need to arrive sometime before 8:30 to catch your tickets. When that is depends on how bad you want 'em — or how nice your boss is.
So, you've been talking about this "Q" thing. Explain.
Q is a fun way of spelling "queue," which, of course, is British for "line."
The Q is the line you wait in if you don't have a ticket. Here's how you get into that line:
1. Pick a movie. A lot of movies play at different venues. Pick one in the largest venue for maximum Q-age (Missouri Theatre, The Blue Note, Jesse).
2. Show up at least an hour before showtime at the venue and look for someone with exuberant attire. That will be the Queen. Queens are walking, talking encyclopedias of fest knowledge. They also hand out the Q numbers. Ask for one (you can only have one). Queens'll only release Q numbers one hour before the movie, so don't bother begging. Note: you will encounter queues for Q numbers at some venues. (Some people will have been there for a while already.) And, yes, sometimes the Queen hands out all the Q numbers very quickly at that hour mark.
3. Once you have your number, go find a bathroom, get something to eat, take a power nap and come back 15 minutes before showtime to claim your place in line. (If you come back after your number was called, you'll go to the end of the line.) If you have number 43, look for 42 and stand behind her. Then start praying that they call your number. When the cinema gods have smiled down upon you and your number is called, you will then pay for your ticket (cash only) and begin the search for an empty seat (the ushers will help). Enjoy the movie! (Passholders can Q too, but they don't have to pay once they get in.)
We mentioned earlier that there are a number of seats saved for Qers at each venue. This ranges from around 11 in the Willy Wilson Theater at Ragtag (the small one, a/k/a Little Ragtag) to well over a hundred at the larger venues (Jesse, The Blue Note, the MO Theatre). Also keep in mind that not every passholder with a ticket will show. People get excited and reserve 18 films two weeks before the fest but forget that they have to eat sometime. And when you throw secret dance parties into the mix, yeah, those 9:30am screenings on Sunday start looking pretty easy to get into from the Q.
Check out the True/False website for more helpful tips, ask us questions at [email protected], and have a safe, wonderful fest!
Box office hours:
