How much would you pay someone to wait in line to get "free" Shakespeare tickets for you?

See New York, Where a 16-Hour Line for Shakespeare Makes Perfect Sense: This city loves a line, but at 2:30 a.m.? It could only be one thing by Charles Passy and Jacob Passy of The WSJ. 

We say in economics that there is no free lunch. So there are no free Shakespeare tickets. People pay a pretty big cost in terms of time to get them and sometimes wait in line and come up empty. Or you can pay someone to wait and save time, which is money. 

Excerpts

"In a city (NY) now famous for its lines, the one for the Public Theater’s free Shakespeare in the Park is as storied as the open-air shows themselves."

"Kelly Gregor arrived with her husband at 2:30 a.m. on a recent weekday. The 29-year-old graduate student heard that scoring tickets was tough. “I don’t want to gamble,” she said.

It was eerily dark when they took their spot on the western edge of the park, which is closed until 6 a.m. Within a few hours, a couple hundred others had joined them, spread out on blankets and camping chairs.

Gregor brought chocolate and popcorn. She even planned to get some sleep, but was thwarted by a late-summer chill. Her husband eventually went home to grab extra clothing. Others in the crowd had hot soup from a local restaurant delivered."

"Ryan-Young has made Shakespeare in the Park a tradition. This year that required more tenacity. His first two attempts to secure tickets failed; he got to the site too late. The third try was successful, but only after he and his college-student daughter woke up at 1:30 a.m."

"Every summer, Same Ole Line Dudes, which bills itself as “New York’s Premier Team of Professional Line Sitters,” sees an influx of requests from would-be theatergoers. This year, requests for Shakespeare in the Park doubled, said founder Robert Samuel.

The company charges $25 an hour for its services, with a two-hour minimum, plus a $15 fee for queuing before 7 a.m. One group of Mexican tourists shelled out $795 for six tickets, delivered to their hotel." 

Related posts:

"It’s almost like you’re paying to get out of jail" (paying for a service that lets you avoid TSA lines at the airport) (2016)

Students at Cornell University can use an app to pay their peers to drop out of certain classes to obtain an open seat themselves (2022) 

Want to make $60 an hour? Stand in line for a lobbyist, while its still legal (2007)