Business & Tech

Rolling Stones Play Echo Park's Echoplex in Secret Show

The Saturday night appearance sells out quickly in a lottery held the same afternoon.

Update, 5 p.m.: More tickets to the Rolling Stones' show may be released in the next hour or two, says the LA Weekly.  According to a Echo Park-Silver Lake Patch reader who wishes to remain anonymous, only 300 were sold in the first lottery, with the remainder held for VIPs, family and friends.

Earlier: ECHO PARK, CA -- This is not a joke.

The Rolling Stones will play the Echoplex in Echo Park Saturday night. Owner Mitchell Frank says the show will begin at 9 p.m., with access extremely limited.  The LA Weekly says capacity is 700.

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Tickets for the show went on sale at 1 p.m. at the El Rey Theater in mid-Wilshire, and according to the band's Twitter, were sold out by 2:20 p.m. They were distributed by lottery and, according to photos on social media, people were waiting in the street from early Saturday morning to try to buy one.

The Echoplex was already hosting a "Brit Week" in the space. They bumped those bands for the Stones, according to BuzzBandsLA and other social media sources. The Rolling Stones start their national tour May 3 with a show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

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According to Buzzbands, rumors of the show had begun circulating Friday when the Stones, tweeting from @GRRRegory, said  “Grrrreat things are brewing! Watch this space at 12.30pm PT tomorrow for some news.”

Saturday morning ticket info was eventually released on the AEGlive.com Web site, but long after fans had lined up outside the El Rey and after gear was spotted being loaded into the Echoplex.

The Echoplex is located at 1822 Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park. It opened about seven years ago underneath the smaller capacity Echo, after extensive efforts by Frank to obtain appropriate permits.

Early Saturday afternoon, Echo Park-Silver Lake Patch readers still were joking online that the whole thing was a hoax. But they were also making plans to rubberneck outside the Echoplex just in case it wasn't.

As longtime Echo Park resident and rock photographer Gary Leonard said, "They'll never tear it down now. It's history."

Tell us: Did you get a ticket to tonight's show?

Related:

Rolling Stones Shake Up Saturday Night in Echo Park

Video: Rolling Stones in Echo Park


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