Ec 10 may be big, but Billy Joel is apparently bigger.

The singer's 8 p.m. lecture tonight might be the fullest ever offered in Sanders Theatre, which is completely sold out. In fact, after Harvard affiliates bought two-thirds of the approximately 1,200 tickets, the rest disappeared early last week in just 45 minutes on Ticketmaster.

And he's not even promising to sing. The event, entitled "An Evening of Questions and Answers...and Perhaps a Few Songs," is billed as a question and answer session, with little performance, said Sozi Sozinho '97, an employee at the Sanders Theatre Box Office.

"The format is a little more interactive than his usual performances," said producer Larry Mondi of Larry Mondi Productions. "He's here by himself, and he'll answer questions from the audience."

Mondi is in charge of videotaping the event for Joel's archives, but he denied rumors that an HBO special may be made of the event.

Harvard fans are definitely gearing up for Joel's arrival.

Elizabeth R. Pope '98 has a friend coming up from Alabama to visit for the weekend.

"Not to see me, but to see Billy Joel,": she said. "I've memorized most of his songs. He's my idol."

Others seem to feel that Joel's appearance backs the recent U.S. News and World Report article that ranked Harvard the number one university in the nation.

"Any school that will bring Billy Joel here has to be the best school in the world," said Sara G. Cooper '98.

Actually, Harvard is not even the first college where Joel has offered such an event. Joel has spoken at Williams, Dartmouth, University of California at Berkeley and Columbia, said Joe Wrinn, director of Harvard's news office.

But students don't seem to care that they're not getting a unique product.

"I was screaming the whole way to the ticket office and the whole way back," Cooper said.

Other students said they hope to learn from Joel's lecture.

"I think it will be especially valuable for musicians," said Nina Das '98. "He's my favorite, so I'm excited."

As students anticipate the star's arrival today, setup crews are already hard at work.

"About 100 man-hours will be going into about two hours of performance," said John W. Herrholz, lighting director for the event.

Workers will be unloading and setting up two tons of equipment, including five cameras and 4,000 feet of cables to carry the 20,000 watts of electricity powering the event, he said.

Despite the magnitude of the preparations, workers emphasize that the scale of the talk is much less than that of a normal concert, such as the one Tori Amos gave at Sanders last year.

"This event should be less of a headache," said Brain Yacee, Production Supervisor at Sanders Theatre. "The equipment on stage is minimal, just a normal PA system."

The objective is keep lighting and equipment understated and not "take away from the feeling of one of the oldest halls at Harvard," Herrholz said.

Joel will run a dress rehearsal this afternoon, Herrholz said. Final preparations and fine-tuning will occur then