Quest for Magic: My Day Chasing a Free Harry Potter and The Cursed Child Ticket – Did I Triumph?

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The Battle of The Raffle

On Friday 21, 2023, I was going through Instagram stories when I got an ad from @cursedchildus, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, the Broadway show/continuation of the saga of Harry Potter, which it is 100% canon. In this ad they were offering 50 tickets to see the show, and other gifts were going be put into a raffle. The only conditions for the raffle: you had to be in front of the Lyric Theater in Midtown, which means, in person, and be an adult. In my mind I went, “well, I don’t think A LOT of people are going to fit in this area and/or be interested in this raffle”, so I pack my bag and went to Midtown to try to get the free tickets. To my surprise, it was PACKED:

People were literally ralling in front of the theater, blocking the traffic on 43rd St (I wonder what DOT or the police would have said lol). I immediately learned two lessons this day: never underestimate New Yorkers, and never underestimate Harry Potter fans. I am not sure how many Cursed Child fans are out there but I am sure there were many in this bunch of people. Changes of getting one of the 50 tickets were abismal, but I still applied for the raffle, which was going to be held 30 minutes later.

After a Starbucks break, we came back and the raffle was about to start. It is imperative that I mention that I have seen this show before. Back in 2022 I went to see it. I did not do any research and invited a friend in a BOGO situation thanks to Broadway week. I will mention more about this show down below, but let me tell you, I loved it.

The surprised everyone with the new main cast of the play, and I was in shock. This is a new cast, although some actors are returning.

The actors started to join the party.

Some of the performers were Spencer LaRue as James Potter Jr., Erik C Patterson as Scorpius Malfoy, Joel Meyers as Albus Potter.

The names started to come out, and everyone was so excited, even the ones on the other side of the already blocked street LOL.

All the tickets were assigned to 50 people, leaving I would say hundreds of people sad in the 43rd street. Did I win? Well, no. LOL. But it is fine. Albus Dumbledore came out and participated in the rest of the raffle; they were giving away other prices, maybe even more expensive than the play tickets.

The last price was a PS5, and did not win it either lol. The experience was cute, there was a lot of support coming from the people, everyone behaved and acted nicely. I think this fandom is still very strong despite of what the creator of this universe is saying or doing in Twitter.

My Review of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child:

Now, regarding the play I saw in 2022. You can stop reading this post if you do not want any spoilers:

As I said before, I loved this play. I went unprepared, meaning I had no idea about this story, I knew it was about the kids of the main trio, but not the details. A few things that surprised me or caught me off guard:

• The play was LONGGG. 3 hours and 30 minutes to be exact. There is an intermission, and there are no songs in this play. Be ready for your Broadway friends to know this is not a musical. It has a lot of dialogue and story and plot and plot twists and plot holes.
• The visual effects were AMAZING. How did they do this? How did they do that? I was so shocked by it. Production design was 10/10.
• Even though they were different actors than the ones they have right now, the acting was amazing, especially Brady Dalton Richards as Scorpius Malfoy. They stole all the laughs and tears in those 3 hours and a half. I hope they come back to Broadway.
• The story was great, and very gay too. It seems that in this streamlined version after COVID they really want to make sure that the relationship between Albus Severus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy was in fact, a love one.
• Now, I will not talk too long about parallel universes, alternate timelines or Flashpoint similarities, but the time travel / time turner situation makes no sense. Like really? I thought that the time turner did not help change the future, since everything had already happened, just like in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azakaban.

Regardless, of the plotholes I would recommend 10/10 to go see this play, even if you are not a fan of Harry Potter.

Let me know in the comment section if you would like me to go see other plays in New York City.