Harlem Globetrotters visit Incirlik Air Base

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey -- Question: I am writing to you about the lack of information that was available for the Globetrotters event. I know that there was a lot of confusion and many children were upset. 

The base seldom has activities children and families can attend, so this event was something special for a lot of people. 

My son was very excited to go, but my husband is deployed and I have two smaller children and it makes travel difficult. With the event occurring on a school night at 7p.m., it was not practical for me and therefore I was not originally going to take him. Thankfully, a friend's husband agreed to take both my son and his son to the show. 

This event had been advertised on everything from radio, Commander's Access Channel, posters and flyers. Nowhere on any advertisements was there mention of tickets for this event. 

All that was said was the doors open at 6:15 p.m. and the first 500 people were going to be allowed in and that was it. Fair enough. 

People were lining up as early as 4:30 p.m., which at the time I thought was a little early, but now it makes sense. 

I dropped my son off at his friends' house at 5:45 p.m. and they came back 15 minutes later to inform me that there were no tickets left and they couldn't get in. They also told us about the other people who were getting turned away and leaving such as parents visibly upset with crying children. 

I don't know who was in charge of this event, but somebody dropped the ball. If this was the case, then the whole base should have been made aware of the fact that you needed tickets to get in. 

Maybe other arrangements could have been made to ensure that more children could attend. There could have been a smaller show held in the school gym for the younger children, just like they did for the magic show. That way the evening show would have had more room for older children and Airmen. 

Response: Thank you for the opportunity to address your concerns. As you can imagine, the Globetrotters were on a very tight touring schedule. We did request additional shows; unfortunately their schedule did not allow for more than one performance at Incirlik. 

With regard to the tickets you mentioned, we only used tickets to count how many people entered the gym. With the exception of a very few distinguished visitors, no one received tickets beforehand, as we distributed them on a first-come, firstserve basis as people arrived for the event (exactly as advertised through the many venues you mentioned). Once the gym reached full capacity, we had to turn away remaining personnel. 

We wish we had a larger venue to put the Globetrotters show into, but all members of Team Incirlik had an equal opportunity to arrive early and get seating. First come, first serve was strictly followed and was the fairest way to distribute our limited seats. We will continue to work to create additional entertainment opportunities for Incirlik which I hope you are able to attend.