A real hunt for puppet theater tickets is on again. This is the third year in a row
In the Minsk Puppet Theater, a stir has again arisen around ticket sales. The theater published its repertoire three months in advance, after which spectators massively began trying to buy tickets for performances until the end of the year. However, the website cannot cope with the load, and tickets for many productions disappear almost immediately after sales begin, writes "Zerkalo".
Some spectators reported that just a few minutes after the playbill appeared, no free seats remained. In some cases, the website, when trying to select a seat, reported that the information was outdated and there were no seats left. Others noticed that after refreshing the page a few tens of minutes later, tickets sometimes reappeared, but far from for all performances.
A similar situation has been observed for several years. Previously, the theater explained the problem, in part, by the activity of bots that automatically track the appearance of tickets and buy them out. However, spectators also suggest that the problems may be related to the website's own performance.
Some theater enthusiasts try to go directly to the box office for tickets. One visitor recounted that she stood in line for several hours to get into the performance "Khutar" but still couldn't buy a ticket. Others, conversely, advise coming to the box office directly on the day of the desired performance, when seats might become available.
There are also those who, after long attempts, finally manage to buy tickets. One spectator shared that she managed to buy them 18 minutes after sales began for November performances. She admitted that she didn't even look at which specific production she managed to get into, because for her, the very possibility of buying tickets became a peculiar success.
Some spectators preferred to buy at the box office. One woman recounted that she deliberately came for children's performance tickets and spent about three and a half hours in line. In parallel, she tried to refresh the website, but nothing appeared. Another visitor, after six months of attempts, finally bought three tickets for the performance "A Young Doctor's Notebook," having stood at the box office for two and a half hours.
At the same time, some spectators are indignant that the same people can visit popular performances multiple times, while others cannot get into them at all. In social networks, people joke that on the day tickets go on sale, the queue at the puppet theater's box office seems longer than the queue at the gates of paradise.
The problem with the ticket shortage was noticed by the theater back in 2024. At that time, the management explained that the theater is small, and the troupe has only about 20 people. Therefore, it is impossible to significantly increase the number of performances or stage several productions a day.
At that time, the theater tried to organize sales in various ways. Starting from December 2024, they stopped announcing the exact start date of sales in advance to avoid increasing the hype. As soon as the playbill appeared on the website, tickets went on sale simultaneously at the box office and online. Later, they increased the number of tickets available for sale and increased the number of performances.
In March and April 2025, the number of productions was increased, including the most popular evening repertoire performances — "A Young Doctor's Notebook," "Pension "Belvedere," "On a Black, Black Street," and "Dream." Evening performances also became more frequent on weekends. However, even this did not allow satisfying all demand.
The website's performance became a separate problem. The former theater director, Tatsiana Toustsik, said that in March 2025, during one of the sales, the website stopped working just 15 minutes after the start. According to the internet service provider, at that moment, about 50,000 requests simultaneously hit the website, and the total number of simultaneous connections reached 265,570. The theater assumed that such a load could be created by bots — special programs for automatically tracking and booking tickets.
The theater management stated that they analyzed various sales options and tried to organize the process so that spectators could purchase tickets more conveniently. However, a simple solution to the problem could not be found. The theater noted that such a situation is atypical for Belarusian theaters and requires new approaches so that, eventually, everyone who wishes can attend the desired performance without great difficulty.
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