So you want to go to the inauguration?

So you say you'd like to witness history and be within shouting distance of the Capitol as Barack Obama gets sworn in? Yeah, you and everyone else, which means it may be almost impossible - unless you're connected, creative or have a high credit limit.

Let's start with the tickets.

They're selling on Stubhub.com as I write this for between $1,450 and $7,750 a pop. Don't waste your cash - they haven't been handed out yet. Not only that, but staffers to the mid-Michigan congressional delegation say the plan for handing them out hasn't even been finalized yet.

Well, the method has. Senators, representatives and the White House get a certain allocation of the about 240,000 tickets which will be made available. The allocation is to be determined. But we've got a bit of an idea of how it will work.

In 2005, each senator doled out about 400, each rep about 200 and the White House more than 60,000. It seems like a lot - and it is - but consider how many requests we're talking. The rep's family. Close friends. Office and campaign staff. Their families. Big-shot donors. Mayors, state legislators and public officials from their districts. It's a ton of requests before you get to John Q. Public.

However, there will be some tickets given out. So in that vein, get your requests in early - many other people already have. You should reserve through your congressman or senator's office, (Mike Rogers, Debbie Stabenow, Carl Levin). Trouble is, everyone else who wants to go is doing the same thing. 

Rogers' office had already gotten more than 100 requests by Monday, his spokeswoman Sylvia Warner said, and more are coming in every day. Campaign staff for Mark Schauer - who doesn't even have an office or full-time staffers yet - had more than 70 voicemails asking for tickets when they came into the campaign office Monday morning.

Feel fortunate, however, that you're in Michigan. Members of Congress from most places in reasonable driving distances have hundreds or thousands of requests. Poor Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, of the District of Columbia, became the first to just flat-out quit taking requests because of the high demand.

But let's say you do come out with tickets. Now you've got to get to D.C. - usually a pretty simple task. Except that the flight+hotel packages coming in Monday and leaving Wednesday from Detroit are sold out on Orbitz, and hotels are packed across the city.

So you turn to Craigslist, where you can get a charming 3 BR 2.5 BA home in Leesburg, Va. for $1,500. A day. And that's not remotely near a Metro station. And there are hundreds like it.

It's why I find a statement by Sen. Dianne Feinstein to the Associated Press today so ironically funny.

"These tickets are given for free to people," Feinstein said, presumably straight faced. "This is a major civic event of the time, and no one pays for their tickets, and we believe no one should be required to pay for their tickets."

The problem is that it doesn't work like that in the real world. At least not this year.

Comments

[Greg]

Derek, are you renting out your apartment for the festivities? Baltimore isn't that far; tell the lucky bidders to ride the MARC into Union Station and you're practically at the Capitol!

But seriously folks, the selling of inauguration tickets is preposterous. I got tickets to Bush's second inauguration about 2 weeks beforehand.

[JRS]

The historic nature of the event is driving the demand for tickets
obviously. From what I hear all hotels, motels and bread and breakfast places are sold out that are anywhere close to Washington. If you want a place to stay try the Baltimore and Richmond area, plan on a long commute and hope for the best.