GALAS AND GRIDLOCK MEAN ONE THING 'IT'S SHOWTIME'

INAUGURAL FESTIVITIES WILL BEGIN TODAY

With a cloudless azure sky and mild temperatures that inaugural planners pronounced a good omen, Washington made final preparations yesterday for an inauguration that will open today with thousands of "points of light" created by miniature flashlights and silver fireworks.

At the Capitol, workers applied fresh coats of varnish to the heavy mahogany doors that President Reagan and President-elect George Bush will walk through as they make their grand entrance for Friday's swearing-in ceremony.

In a giant Lanham warehouse, employees of the Hargrove Co. put the finishing touches on 67 parade floats, including one for a TBM Avenger, the torpedo bomber identical to the one piloted by Bush that was shot down over the Pacific in l944.

And triumphant Republicans streamed into town, flushed by the prospect of a dizzying round of parties, parades and pomp in celebration of four more years in the White House.

"It's showtime," said Ed Cassidy, spokesman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee as he stood on the Mall watching a rehearsal of the Lincoln Memorial opening ceremony that will feature a flyover by 21 Navy F14 fighter planes. The 4:30 p.m. ceremony is expected to draw more than 20,000 people, who will be given flashlights to participate in the light ceremony.

"Everything has fallen into place," Cassidy said.

But for some of those who arrived at the Washington Convention Center to pick up their tickets to 11 inaugural balls and 16 other events, everything had not fallen into place. Some discovered that tickets they ordered weeks ago for the four days of festivities were missing.

Don Miller, an Arizona mining operator, spent several frustrating hours trying to find the tickets that were supposed to arrive at his Phoenix home a week ago by express mail. First he was sent to the VIP Room, then to the dreaded Room 32, the "Errors Resolution Area" -- the last stop for ticket problems. Once there, he was told he had to fill out a form, take a number and get in line.

"It's ridiculous," said Miller, who was invited to this inauguration, his first, by Sen. John S. McCain III (R-Ariz.), whose aide he was thinking of contacting for help.

Inaugural officials acknowledged that there were some ticket problems created by the heavy demand. "There are some computer errors," said Mark Andrews of Errors Resolution. "It could be going better."

Some of the ticket errors may have been caused by a mix-up with invitations. Philip Kapneck, a Maryland trade representative who lives in Potomac, said he received four official invitations to the same events in a four-day period, each addressed in a different manner.

Others received none. Song K. Hong, 25, a gardener who said he arrived at Union Station at 6:30 a.m. after an 18-hour train ride from Lakeland, Fla., stood in the main lobby to the Convention Center with a large sign that said: "I need 1 ticket to 1 youth ball."

By noon, a dejected-looking Hong was ready to give up. No one would trade or sell him a ticket to either ball, which sold all 12,000 tickets last weekend. "I'm tired," said Hong, who plans to attend one free inaugural event for which he got a ticket. "It's just hopeless."

Inaugural officials said yesterday that some tickets to the balls at the Convention Center may still be available to the public, at a cost of $175 each. No tickets to any other event are available, officials said. Ticketron employees said they have sold out their tickets to the bleachers at various spots along the parade route. First-come, first-served standing-room spots are available at many places along the route.

Most of those arriving at National and Dulles International airports yesterday were inaugural visitors, according to airport spokesmen. And despite predictions that 75,000 out-of-towners are expected, there are still 10,000 available hotel rooms in the area, according to Austin Kenney of the Washington Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In Hangar 6 at National Airport, which houses planes belonging to the Federal Aviation Administration's "imperial fleet," is the Avenger, this year's inaugural suprise. It was flown in Saturday night by its owner, according to an FAA source.

For weeks, plans for the Avenger have been a closely guarded secret among inaugural officials, who are planning to mount the plane on a gigantic float. The aim is to surprise the new president when it rolls by the presidential reviewing stand in front of the White House, along a special white line newly painted down Pennsylvania Avenue.

"It was a challenge," Earl Hargrove said of the construction of the mammouth float. Hargrove is president of the Hargrove Co., which is building the Avenger float and most of the rest of the floats that will be used in Friday's parade. The platform for the Avenger was scheduled to be driven to the Navy Yard, the site of inaugural committee headquarters, early this morning.

The plane, a mainstay of the U.S. Navy during World War II, was manufactured by Grumman Corp. Its wingspan -- slightly more than 54 feet, according to a Grumman official -- caused parade planners to blanch because they feared it might be too wide for parts of Pennsylvania Avenue. As a result, the reviewing and press stands were moved back. At a dress rehearsal, military personnel determined that the Avenger would just fit -- with less than two feet on each side as it approaches the White House.

After the parade, the plane will be taken to the Mall near the Air and Space Museum, where it will serve as a focal point for that night's Texas inaugural ball.

At the other end of the Mall is a mammoth display featuring the world's largest chair, a 10-ton, 51-foot-high copy of the "rising sun" chair used more than 200 years ago by George Washington while he was presiding over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

The display, at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, is sponsored by the nation's largest Buddhist group in honor of the 200th anniversary of the inauguration and in support of this year's theme of "peace, prosperity and independence."

"We have done this on our own," said Guy McCloskey, spokesman for the Nichiren Shoshu Soka Gakkai of America. "People are coming down here at all hours of the night to take pictures, they're so amazed by it."

Several blocks away, at the rehearsal of the opening ceremony, Rita Morgan, 23, a bank management trainee from Tennessee, snapped pictures as she watched high school students dressed in red and white run through several songs.

"I'm amazed at all that's going into it," she said. "The preparation and training down to every detail."

But the cost of all that preparation for an inauguration that is expected to be the most expensive in history prompted criticism yesterday by Mitch Snyder, an advocate for the homeless.

"If {Bush} wants to provide a kinder, gentler administration, I suggest that he raise another $50 million to set up a fund to provide assistance to the homeless," said Snyder, who claimed at a news conference that the inauguration would cost $50 million, not the estimated $30 million.

Snyder said that the inaugural committee's plans to donate leftover food to area shelters, including his Community for Creative Non-Violence, is an inadequate demonstration of concern. "If Mr. Bush is going to be setting a different example, it will take more than rhetoric and leftover food," he said.

Staff writers Lynne Duke, Nancy Lewis and Nell Henderson contributed to this report.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.