St0rMl0rD

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Dude, what?  Are you that far beyond this hobby these days?

Done! See you guys in Vienna.

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It's been tough, but I secured my 4 tickets for Saturday! Row 21, couldn't get anything else closer to the stage in the same row, but I won't complain at all. This is going to be historic.
 
Btw, I think the Musikverein is purposefully keeping tickets for the general sale on Thursday. Be ready to act quick! Plus, Marian heard that the very first rows and the seats near the orchestra on the stage might not be available because they will extend the stage.
 
I need a cup of tea now

I would still expect at least one piece from The Rise of Skywalker.

As an encore, hopefully.
 
Greetings from the Musikverein queue.  7 People so far (I'm #3).

They should make a CD and a DVD, this will be an incredibly special occassion!

Even better!!
The email said the concerts will be announced tomorrow, at the same time as the sale for the members will begin.

But what we'll get is an LP.

I hope the plan is to make a CD, like last time.

Can confirm, front row is the best by far. You’ll be able to hear orchestras do these pieces for years to come, but seeing the man himself conduct them two or three feet in front of you is an experience like no other. It’s how I’ve seen him at the majority of the concerts I’ve been to, and it’s truly jaw dropping, not to mention the little interactions you get as mentioned above.
 
I’ve exchanged head nods, little eyebrow raises, and smiles with Williams himself after hearing my favorite pieces live conducted by him, and it’s surreal. This past year at Tanglewood, after one of the Star Wars pieces, he even gave me a big smile and raised both his arms in a kind of “huzzah” in response to my excited clapping!

I never thought he'd do this
 
He must be feeling a  lot better

Indeed. Fuck acoustics, I've seen Williams twice and heard all the pieces a million times. If I had the chance to go to this concert, I would have gone for the front seats immediately; that's what I did for the JW concert in Boston in 2014 and it's one of my best concert experiences ever. I vividly remember giving a thums up to Williams at the end, and he gave me a thumbs up in return!

Just received this email from Vienna's Musikverein:
 
Dear friends of music,
 
"A Tribute to John Williams" - under this title, the concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra which was scheduled for last year will take place on 18th and 19th of January 2020 at the Wiener Musikverein. We are pleased to announce the commitment of John Williams to perform selected highlights from his rich musical output with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
 
As a ticket purchaser of the cancelled concert from last November, we wanted to inform you, exclusively before the official release date on October 22, 2019, that the concerts will take place.
 
As a member of the previous season, we would like to offer you the opportunity to buy tickets as soon as the sale for the members launches, even if you have not renewed your membership for this season. This possibility is not associated with any obligation and of course free of charge.
 
Start of presale:
Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 9.00h (members of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde)
Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 09.00h (start of the general presale)
 
Concert tickets can be purchased at www.musikverein.at or in person / by telephone at the Konzertkassa of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.
 
The two concert dates are:
Saturday, 18 January 2020 at 15.30
Sunday, 19 January 2020 at 11.00
 
We would be happy to welcome you to one of the two concerts at the Musikverein.
 
Ihre Konzertkassa / Your Box-Office
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien

Just a warning: if member Phoenix offers you to buy you tickets at pre-sale, be aware that last time I accepted his offer but when the concerts were cancelled he never refunded my money and didn't even answer my messages about it. I had to file case with PayPal to get my money back. 

And people stop humming into the microphone!

They could always use Dirk Brossé again.

Just received this email from Vienna's Musikverein:
 
Dear friends of music,
 
"A Tribute to John Williams" - under this title, the concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra which was scheduled for last year will take place on 18th and 19th of January 2020 at the Wiener Musikverein. We are pleased to announce the commitment of John Williams to perform selected highlights from his rich musical output with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
 
As a ticket purchaser of the cancelled concert from last November, we wanted to inform you, exclusively before the official release date on October 22, 2019, that the concerts will take place.
 
As a member of the previous season, we would like to offer you the opportunity to buy tickets as soon as the sale for the members launches, even if you have not renewed your membership for this season. This possibility is not associated with any obligation and of course free of charge.
 
Start of presale:
Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 9.00h (members of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde)
Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 09.00h (start of the general presale)
 
Concert tickets can be purchased at www.musikverein.at or in person / by telephone at the Konzertkassa of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.
 
The two concert dates are:
Saturday, 18 January 2020 at 15.30
Sunday, 19 January 2020 at 11.00
 
We would be happy to welcome you to one of the two concerts at the Musikverein.
 
Ihre Konzertkassa / Your Box-Office
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien

Just received this email from Vienna's Musikverein:
 
Dear friends of music,
 
"A Tribute to John Williams" - under this title, the concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra which was scheduled for last year will take place on 18th and 19th of January 2020 at the Wiener Musikverein. We are pleased to announce the commitment of John Williams to perform selected highlights from his rich musical output with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
 
As a ticket purchaser of the cancelled concert from last November, we wanted to inform you, exclusively before the official release date on October 22, 2019, that the concerts will take place.
 
As a member of the previous season, we would like to offer you the opportunity to buy tickets as soon as the sale for the members launches, even if you have not renewed your membership for this season. This possibility is not associated with any obligation and of course free of charge.
 
Start of presale:
Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 9.00h (members of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde)
Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 09.00h (start of the general presale)
 
Concert tickets can be purchased at www.musikverein.at or in person / by telephone at the Konzertkassa of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.
 
The two concert dates are:
Saturday, 18 January 2020 at 15.30
Sunday, 19 January 2020 at 11.00
 
We would be happy to welcome you to one of the two concerts at the Musikverein.
 
Ihre Konzertkassa / Your Box-Office
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien

Here's some inside information (inside Vienna that is; I don't have any direct ties to the Musikverein itself, other than being a regular visitor):
 
I don't know if the original two concerts ever sold out. If they did, they did so very late. Tickets were available for months. They obviously did really poor promotion on this. Obviously the best seats in each category were gone very quickly, but you could still get plenty of decent tickets in I think all or most price ranges much later. Not sure if those were all available right away or if they got released as a separate contingent after a while. Personally, I queued in front of the ticket office at I think 4:30 in the morning, and I was alone their until I got joined by another person about an hour later. The others arrived not before 7 or later, and I think we were about 10 people when the office opened. Of course there were many online and phone orders as well, so picking the very best seats was still a bit of a race.
 
Still, I wouldn't risk anything; more people might be interested this time (or not). I'll be queuing early again, though probably not quite as early.
 
As far as I remember, a membership can be booked online now, and as soon as that's activated, you can automatically access the membership exclusive dates on the website (if you're logged in). I don't know if the membership has to be processed manually, and if they're fully staffed on weekends, so if in doubt, perhaps better get one right away (it's Friday just an hour after noon right now) or early on Monday (CEST).
 
Booking a seat online (or at the box office) uses the hall layout posted above. You can either pick a category and let the system assign you the "best" seat, or pick one manually. The interface is a bit wonky (the new website design that was introduced about 2 years ago didn't improve much and made some things worse), so best play around with it with another concert before to get the hang of it. The categories vary, and I haven't been able to figure out exactly which seats belong to which category in general, but you can use other concerts as a rough guide. The best and most expensive seats are in the rear half of the Cercle, I think - probably some of the boxes, too, but I'm not a big fan of most of them. The further back you sit, the more reverb you're likely to get (also depends on the seat though, I think the boxes are a bit different in sound), so on the "cheaper" seats on the balcony and gallery, you get a glorious sound but not necessarily very detailed acoustics.
 
For everyone asking if I could pick them up a ticket: I'm sorry, but I first have to coordinate with all the people I got tickets for last time, and with my other friends who are also booking tickets online. It's 4 tickets per membership, so for the first two days every person can only get a total of 8 tickets. We had to plan out purchases very carefully to make sure all of us got all the tickets they wanted (I'll be going twice again, once with the best ticket I can get and the second time probably with a cheaper one). There were leftovers, so if you want to risk it, and aren't picky regarding which seat you get, I can probably let you know what's left once we've fully supplied our immediate circles of friends.
 
It's certainly worded in such a way that he'll at least conduct a part of the concert (so more than was promised for Tanglewood earlier this year, where he still ended up conducting the final third). I do remember we had similar speculations last time, and in the end he was clearly supposed to conduct the whole affair himself (he was the only conductor listed right before the cancellation). I would imagine there will be a backup conductor, and I wouldn't be surprised if they go ahead without Williams should he not feel up to it, but I'd expect unless he falls ill again, unless his overall condition isn't as good as last year, there's a good chance he'll do the full concerts himself.
 
I'll only really believe it when he shows up on stage anyway. Last year I started believing this was really going to happen about two weeks before the concert, and look where that got us.

Membership for a year (minimum duration) is 70 €. There were some tickets left after the presale for members, but not many. Ticket prices varied from 50 € (obstructed view) to 250 €.

As a bonus, those who purchased membership last year and did not renew it, should be still able to get the pre-sale tickets as regular members...

You can buy the membership now and the tickets on Tuesday, that's what I did last year; you don't need to have the physical card, it's all online

Just received this email from Vienna's Musikverein:
 
Dear friends of music,
 
"A Tribute to John Williams" - under this title, the concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra which was scheduled for last year will take place on 18th and 19th of January 2020 at the Wiener Musikverein. We are pleased to announce the commitment of John Williams to perform selected highlights from his rich musical output with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
 
As a ticket purchaser of the cancelled concert from last November, we wanted to inform you, exclusively before the official release date on October 22, 2019, that the concerts will take place.
 
As a member of the previous season, we would like to offer you the opportunity to buy tickets as soon as the sale for the members launches, even if you have not renewed your membership for this season. This possibility is not associated with any obligation and of course free of charge.
 
Start of presale:
Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 9.00h (members of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde)
Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 09.00h (start of the general presale)
 
Concert tickets can be purchased at www.musikverein.at or in person / by telephone at the Konzertkassa of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.
 
The two concert dates are:
Saturday, 18 January 2020 at 15.30
Sunday, 19 January 2020 at 11.00
 
We would be happy to welcome you to one of the two concerts at the Musikverein.
 
Ihre Konzertkassa / Your Box-Office
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien