Hello! Just joined after lurking on this thread for months. My boyfriend and I just got back from 27 hours in the cancellation and we made it into today's matinee! (I will spare you the excessive exclamation points that I am currently feeling... here's a few: !!!!!!!!)
I could go on forever about the actual show but you all already know (and if you don't know, now you know)
The cancellation line for today was LONG. Like, significantly longer than any other line mentioned in this thread. We drove down from Massachusetts yesterday, arrived at 11am, and were somewhere around 28th in line. Last night, I think 12 people got in, 5 of which were premiums. Everyone in front of us stayed the night (some were on their second night) so we were 19 and 20 in line for the overnight wait, which was way farther back than we expected. By 6am today, the line extended beyond the stage door. I lost track of its length after that but the line kept growing.
For today's matinee, 4 premiums were given out early, and then 8 standing room tickets, and that was it. We were 15th in line at this point and no one in front of us took standing room- I was a little nervous because I've heard that the view is not great, but we were in line to be in The Room Where It Happens no matter where we stood or sat. I hesitated and the woman from the box office looked me in the eye and said "you should take these" - I trusted her and I am SO VERY GLAD WE DID!
If you are offered SRO on the cancellation line, ABSOLUTELY TAKE THOSE TICKETS! For one, they are an incredible price. The view is great, we had absolutely no complaints. You can't see people on the balcony but our line sitting neighbor mentioned during intermission that you can go on the stairs behind us to see important balcony parts, so I was able to catch Daveed's entrance and other notable balcony moments during Act 2. You are also close to the bathroom (we were 0% expecting to get into the matinee and I was so unprepared, I had to run to the bathroom during Meet Me Inside and I was back to my spot by That Would Be Enough), and you can be first out for intermission if you want to rush and buy something. You have a little room to move in your spot and move around to the music which was nice (I wasn't like, full on dancing, which would have been embarrassing).
I doubt we would have gotten in tonight and I am so glad we took the standing room tickets, along with some of our awesome line neighbors, one of which is moving to India tomorrow (happy travels!). Everyone was super nice, everyone looked out for each other, cheered when people got tickets, offered up food (thank you for the GF bread, line strangers, and Ben, Pat thanks you for half of your burger!). Getting in was such a whirlwind; I started to cry when we were buying tickets and the man at the booth was like "happy tears?" and I choked out a "yes!" and then pretty much continued crying/smiling for three hours.
This has been an emotional and intense past few days. "Look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now" has really never felt more fitting. Still can't believe we saw the full cast minus Groff- everyone was out of this world! Thanks to everyone on this board for all the information- I've been studying it for months and it finally paid off! Good luck to anyone trying the line!