Grant and Lincoln's invitation

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks Roger and Herb for relieving me from the doubts I casted on my memory.

One indication that the tickets were not completely sold out would be to me that some witnesses only decided to attend when "accidentally" coming along, or that some were able to find better seats than they originally had purchased.

The invitation of Lincoln and Grant was the marketing strategy to fill the house on Good Friday, a holiday on which even many usual theatergoers would rather have stayed away.
A ticket for the upper boxes was ten dollars and a ticket was six dollars for the lower boxes. Thus, assuming four persons fit in each box, selling tickets for the other six boxes would have added another 88$, equivalent to $1320.77 nowadays, to the profit.

Would any possible detraction from the presidential party have been worth that sum? Would people have decided against attendance when they knew the other boxes were occupied because they feared distraction? Would Ford's have had to fear such fears?

On Amazon I found this statement in a review on "We Saw Lincoln Shot":
"On history's most tragic Good Friday night since that First Good Friday, 741 people bought a ticket to Ford's Theater."