Going Standby to General Conference

Getting tickets to go to General Conference can be difficult, especially if you live in Utah. When Scott was in a bishopric about 2009, we got 4 tickets so I took up 3 of my older boys (the oldest son was gone on his mission.) I'm really glad we got to go but sadly I can't find the picture of that event. Then 7 or 8 years ago, Scott got 3 tickets and took 2 younger children.

With the scarcity of tickets, we decided to try our luck at standby and invited Camille and 2 of our grandchildren to come with us. We picked up our grandchildren at noon on Saturday and headed for a taco place called ROC Taco in downtown SLC which our son had recommended. He works near the downtown area so he frequently eats lunch there. We got some yummy tacos (he recommended the GOAT and the Jimmy Churri tacos) plus Camille got her usual favorite of nachos and ate our lunch.

Then when we were finished, we headed out to find a parking spot. We had no idea what we were doing. We picked this place that looked like it would work which turned out to be kind of expensive. But it was reasonably close and there was no line to get in (maybe that's the result of more expensive fees.) We walked over to the Tabernacle and got in the line for standby tickets about 1:15. The line went very quickly because they gave us standby tickets and then had us sit in the Tabernacle to wait. As long as you went out with your ticket through a certain door, you could go to the luxurious bathrooms at Temple Square and then get back in. I asked what our chances of getting in were and one of the many, many volunteers told me that in the morning session, there were 6000 ticketholders that didn't show up so the 800+ people on standby all got in.

We didn't have to wait long though, because a few minutes after 2, they ushered us over to the Conference Center where we got seats in the balcony pretty close to the top. You could call them the nosebleeds. I don't know how many people were in the standby line but there were some empty seats still after they sent us over.

During conference, our two grandchildren wrote and drew in the notebooks I brought for them, and we enjoyed watching all the action down below and listening to the talks. Afterwards, since we were close to the aisle and near the top, it was pretty quick to exit and get back to our car, taking a few pictures, of course.

I considered it a big win that both my grandchildren said they enjoyed going. I think they even used the word, Awesome! My granddaughter said, "I thought it would be boring, but it wasn't!" I enjoyed it too and we'll have to do it again sometime.

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