The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square is changing the way it distributes tickets to its annual Christmas concert — and it may be the closest thing Utah will ever get to a lottery.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will use a computer to randomly select recipients for tickets, from the hundreds of thousands of requests received. This replaces the old first-come, first-served online system the church had used.
The shows are set for Dec. 12-14, at 8 p.m. each night, in the church’s Conference Center on North Temple. The shows feature the choir, Orchestra at Temple Square and Bells on Temple Square. This year’s guest artists will be announced Friday.
Here’s how it works: People seeking tickets must create an account on My Temple Square Tickets (formerly My LDS Tickets), providing a name, address, email address and phone number. Those with accounts can register for the random selection of two tickets for either the Thursday, Friday or Saturday shows — again, the choice of date is also randomized.
The registration period begins Friday at noon MDT and runs through Sunday, Nov. 3, at midnight. Registration is limited to one per household. People registering multiple times, or using an address besides their principal home address, could have all their registrations canceled.
Once the registrations are in, a computer program will eliminate duplicates and randomize the requests. The computer will then pick the lucky recipients of the concert tickets. For a full explanation of the rules, go to thetabernaclechoir.org.
