TICKETS to see one of the top British comedians perform in Chester sold out in “record time”, say organisers.
John Bishop will appear to sold-out audiences at the Laugh Inn, on Station Road, Chester, on June 7 and 8.
Organisers announced the dates via their Facebook page on Thursday evening and tickets went on sale at the box office and via the Ticketweb website at 9am on Friday morning.
A line of fans were seen queueing in the early hours outside the Homer House venue and more than 40 people were waiting in a telephone queue for the tickets.
On the venue's Facebook page, those who missed out on tickets were left disgruntled after web-based tickets sold out within eight minutes and at the box office within 20 minutes.
John Locke, who co-owns the popular comedy hotspot with award-winning comedian Jason Manford, apologised to disappointed punters.
He told the Leader: “Firstly, we would like to offer our apologies to anybody who was unable to get a ticket today.
“We highly value our fans and go to great lengths to bring you the best in comedy to Chester.
“Due to some of our acts being very high profile, such as in this case, we anticipate a very high demand for tickets.
“However, on this occasion we have received an even bigger response than we anticipated, which has meant that our tickets for John Bishop have sold out in record time.”
Mr Locke added: “Normally this would make no difference whatsoever – due to the time it takes to fill in card details, address details, email details etc, but due to the thousands of people trying to get these very limited tickets they sold out at an incredible rate.”
Mr Locke said John Bishop was just the first in a stellar line-up of acts due to perform at the venue this year.
He added: “Appreciate that whenever we have a comic here with a huge following that we are going to have an enormous response and demand for tickets and that we can only answer so many calls at a time.
“The Laugh Inn will continue to work hard to bring top names to Chester, and 2012 will be an exciting year.”