More than a few people were disappointed on Tuesday morning (October 21) when they tried to reserve free tickets for an upcoming special screening at Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre of the new HBO supernatural horror series It: Welcome to Derry, which was partly filmed in Port Hope.
It took less than an hour for the event at the 380-seat theatre to sell out, with many people reporting they were unable to access the venue’s website or get through to the box office on the phone.
“The Capitol Theatre’s website was unable to keep up with the demand,” reads a post on the Capitol Theatre’s Facebook page. “We were lined up all the way down the street, and the phones were ringing off the hook.”
The “red carpet premiere” of the first two episodes of It: Welcome to Derry at the historic venue at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, October 29 — two days before Halloween — was announced by Port Hope Tourism on its Facebook page last Friday.
With advance tickets available starting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the Capitol Theatre’s website was inaccessible within minutes due to the online demand for tickets.
People who visited the box office in person were able to get tickets, along with those who managed to get through on the phone.
VIDEO: “It: Welcome to Derry” official trailer
The screening is being presented by Port Hope Tourism in partnership with HBO Max, Crave, Ontario Creates, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
While the first episode of It: Welcome to Derry is scheduled to premiere on HBO (and on Crave in Canada) on Sunday, October 26, the Capitol Theatre event also includes an exclusive screening of the second episode, which will only be available to the general public the following Sunday.
Based on Stephen King’s 1986 novel It, the HBO series serves as a prequel to the films It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019), both of which featured Port Hope as a stand-in for the fictional town of Derry, Maine.
Set in 1962, It: Welcome to Derry tells the story of a couple and their son who move to Derry just as a young boy mysteriously disappears. With their arrival, very bad things begin to happen in the town.
The series stars Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Clara Stack, Amanda Christine, and Mikkal Karim-Fidler, with Bill Skarsgård reprising his role as Pennywise the Clown from the films.
Principal photography on the series began in Toronto, Hamilton, and Port Hope in May 2023, under the shooting title Greetings from Fairview, and continued in 2024.
