I know, another W thread. :) I've done the lotto at the Pantages five times over the past two weeks, won twice, and all of the times that I was there (including a matinee and a weekend night) I would say the lotto crowd has been about 50, 60 people. Maybe 75 tops.
Lotto today (Tuesday): I'd say 150 people, probably more. I have never seen it that crowded!
There's a guy in the crowd that I refer to as scalper man, I don't know for sure that he's some type of scalper, all I know is that when I saw him once before the people in his 'group' were talking about how much they'd make for the tix if they won the lotto for two seats together, vs how much they'd get for winning two single seats in the lotto. But they ended up not winning anything! Anyway, scalper man was there again today, and he claims that the increase in the crowd is because he put this up on craigslist:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/tix/83941205.html I don't know what the reason is- building word of mouth, etc. but the lotto is huge now, it was pretty cool- I felt like I was in one of those NY lotto crowds that people are always talking about!