Pat Toomey’s Town Hall Sold Out in Six Minutes

You can still try your luck by joining the wait list.

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If you haven’t heard by now, Sen. Pat Toomey will hold a town hall on Thursday – with 54 people.

PBS39 WLVT will host the event, which it calls a “community town hall,” at the PPL Public Media Center in Bethlehem.

Of the 54 seats in the audience, 24 will be split between Democratic and Republican committees in the Lehigh Valley. The remaining 30 became available to the public at 9 a.m. this past Saturday – and according to DaWayne Cleckley, vice president of marketing at PBS39, they ran out at 9:06 a.m.

Six minutes! Six minutes is all it took for tickets to Toomey’s quasi-town hall to sell out – less than 24 hours after the event was announced. Maybe that seems ridiculously fast, or maybe it was entirely predictable, seeing as constituents (including those in the Tuesdays with Toomey groups) have begged the Senator to hold an in-person town hall since November.

Odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime: 1 in 3,000 Odds of being PA constituent to get 1 of 30 tix to face Toomey: 1 in 426,000 — Scott (@NETtanyLion) August 27, 2017

Those who are especially ambitious and still hoping to snag a coveted seat at the event can try their luck by joining the wait list for the event – which Cleckley said stood at about 84 people as of Tuesday.

Or they could try to get in touch with one of the 30 lucky ticket-holders – and see if they’ll pass on any questions.

Aside from the obvious question: "why are you so afraid of the public that you limit your town hall to 30 people?" — Daniel Thomas Krall (@DanielTKrall) August 29, 2017

Toomey’s held several telephone town halls since the election – but this will be his most prominent Q&A event since then. The senator is expected to field some questions from the audience and some questions submitted online in advance (which you can do here).

Cleckley said PBS39 had received 182 question-only submissions as of Tuesday. The news organization will partner with the Allentown Morning Call and Mulhenberg College to determine what questions Toomey will answer. The event will be televised live.

Follow @ClaireSasko on Twitter.