Getting Into Bozo Circus Was Hardest Ticket To Get In Illinois

There have been many huge events held in Illinois over the years, but which was the hardest to get tickets for?

The Toughest Ticket Of All Time To Get In Illinois And Possibly The United States

When I was growing up, there weren't television channels like Nickelodeon, Disney, or Cartoon Network. We had few choices as kids. There were the Saturday morning cartoons. PBS had some shows like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. WGN out of Chicago had a couple of my favorites: Ray Raynor Show and Bozo Circus.

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According to Hey Chicago...

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My favorite children's program of all time is Bozo Circus. I would watch that show every day. It was filmed in Chicago at the WGN studios, and they had a live studio audience for all the show tapings. It was the dream of every kid in Illinois and beyond to see Bozo and his friends live and in person. There was only one problem. That was getting tickets.

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Tickets for Bozo Circus were the toughest to get of all time in Chicago, Illinois, and possibly the entire United States. It was such a popular show, the demand to go was through the roof. The only way you could get on the show was to mail in a request to the TV station. It was a pretty small studio, so it took years for you to receive them. My mom started mailing in ticket requests when she was pregnant with me. The first time we went, I was eight years old. Talk about a waiting list. Luckily, my mom sent in for tickets a few times, so I got to experience Bozo live a handful of times. We even got tickets when I was in high school. We gave those to my little cousins.

People waited so long for Bozo tickets that there was no way they were going to sell them. In fact, ticket brokers weren't really a thing yet. You could find scalpers outside concerts and games, but that was it. I'm so glad I got that experience.