'Last Waltz' 50th Anniversary Screening Sells Out In 48 Hours; Theater Adds Matinees

WAUKESHA — All six weekend showtimes of The Last Waltz 50th Anniversary edition at the Rivoli Theatre sold out in under 48 hours, a run so fast the theater's box office manager said she had to refresh the seating chart three times before believing it.

"We printed 300 tickets per showing," said Carol Teschner, 58, who has managed the Rivoli's single screen for eleven years. "Every single one is gone. We're getting calls from people in Pewaukee, Oconomowoc, even Milwaukee. These are serious fans."

The Rivoli booked the restored concert film, documenting The Band's 1976 farewell performance at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, for what was originally planned as four showtimes across Saturday and Sunday. By Thursday afternoon, Teschner said, the theater's phone line had logged 61 missed calls, most asking about a waitlist that does not exist.

A line before there was a line

By Friday morning, five people were already sitting on folding chairs outside the Rivoli's box office, two hours before it opened. Dennis Przybylski, 64, of Big Bend, said he drove up without knowing tickets were already gone, on the strength of having seen the film eleven times on home video.

"I own it on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD," Przybylski said. "I just never got to see Robbie Robertson's guitar solo on a screen bigger than my recliner." He said he planned to return for Tuesday's matinee, which he learned about from a stranger in the folding-chair line.

Teschner said the theater added a Tuesday and a Wednesday matinee this week specifically to accommodate demand, pulling the slots from a previously scheduled run of a nature documentary about Wisconsin wetlands that had sold four tickets total.

Concession counter caught off guard

The sellout also strained the Rivoli's concession stand, which ran out of its large popcorn bucket by the first Saturday showing and switched remaining customers to a medium bucket sold at the large price, a substitution concession manager Ray Dudek, 41, said nobody complained about.

"We go through maybe twelve buckets of butter flavoring on a normal weekend," Dudek said. "We went through thirty-one. I had to run to Piggly Wiggly between showings for more napkins because people were crying into the small ones."

"I own it on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD. I just never got to see Robbie Robertson's guitar solo on a screen bigger than my recliner."

— Dennis Przybylski, Big Bend resident

Downtown parking feels it too

The screenings' popularity had ripple effects on downtown parking, already a sore subject since a freight train sat stopped on the Broadway crossing for 22 minutes Saturday evening, trapping several ticket holders between the tracks and the Rivoli's lot. Teschner said the theater held the 7 p.m. showing four minutes past its start time for stragglers, a first in her tenure.

Councilman Gary Puchalski, who attended Sunday's matinee with his wife, said he was unaware the engagement had sold out until he tried to buy a second ticket for a neighbor at the door. "I've been on council six years and I did not see this coming," Puchalski said. "I thought Scorsese retired after Goodfellas. Apparently he did not, and apparently neither did The Band."

Teschner said the Rivoli is now fielding requests to extend the run a third weekend, though she cautioned the theater's single screen is already booked with a previously scheduled run of a regional high school film festival. She said she has not ruled out a second weekend if the festival's entries, currently eight submissions, fail to arrive on time.

"If I have to bump the high schoolers for The Band, I will lose sleep over it," Teschner said. "But I will also sell out again."