Buckley's 10-year-old daughter, who will be dancing at the 4th of July show, eagerly waited for her mother to return with a handful of tickets.

"I'm going to have a lot of friends," said Mary Ann Watanabe, flashing her 25 tickets.

But at the back of the line there was a more somber mood. Frustrated folks several hundred back, who heard different rumors of the sell-out, grew uneasy with their chances and fired questions as ushers. Too hopeful to leave, many waited in the line at least an hour and half after tickets were gone.

Grandma Lynda Slater, 60, was one of those hopefuls. Instead of giving her 14 grandchildren different birthday gifts throughout the year, she made up "Admit One" coupons for each of her kids and grandkids for the Stadium of Fire. "This was going to be their birthday presents," she said standing in the very last of the line. "They're all really excited to go and I think I'll just cry if I can't get tickets. I don't' know how I'm going to break it to them."

Five of her grandchildren were there, playing on a nearby patch of grass and the youngest ones didn't understand.

"We've already got our tickets," said 5-year-old Hunter Powell, who apparently thought tht wishing was getting.

"This is going to be the best ever, said Powell cousin, 6-year-old Samantha Slater, also unaware that the birthday giftrs were in jeopardy.

Slater sneaked over with a handful of candy bars, perhaps as the beginning of a peace treaty to the little ones.

"The thing is," she said. "I'm probably not going to be here in another two years and this has always been my dream.

Slater has a rare life-threatening muscular disease called Dermatomyositis which costs $36,000 a month for 3-day long treatments at the University of Utah, paid for by her health insurance.

"And once my $2-million-dollar insurance money runs out in a year and a half," she said while still in line. "I'll pretty much just kinda die."

That was at 5:30. In a late-night follow-up call, Slater told the Deseret News she was elated to able to spend the her Fourth of July with her family. "I'm the proud owner of 23 tickets," she said emotionally. Her son-in-law, who luckily landed in the line's first 250 bought the tickets.

"I can't tell you how excited I am for this," she said.

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E-mail: jhancock@desnews.com