This Page Was Most Recently Updated: Saturday, September 22nd 2007
Copyright © 2007 Hy Bender
Email: hy@hyreviews.com
Discount Theatre Tickets via TKTS
Discount Theatre Tickets via Discount Codes
Comp Theatre Tickets via "Seat Filler" Services
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Discount Theatre Tickets via TKTS
Most folks are aware that you can get same-day tickets to many Broadway and off-Broadway shows for nearly 50% off via the Times Square TKTS booth. But here are a few things that aren't as well known:
You don't have to wait until you arrive at a TKTS booth to get some idea of what shows will be sold at discount. Instead, you can see what shows were available at TKTS last week by simply clicking here. Alternatively, you can click here and then click the All Shows link that appears (in the upper-right) to see a long list of NYC productions, along with a note about whether each show typically does and doesn't provide tickets via the TKTS booths. For example, here's a sampling from the listings on September 22, 2007
Shows Frequently Available included: Alter Boyz, Avenue Q, Chicago, A Chorus Line, The Drowsy Chaperone, Forbidden Broadway, Les Miserables, Monty Python's Spamalot, Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Rent, and Xanadu.
Shows Occasionally Available included: The Color Purple, Hairspray, Mamma Mia!, The Phantom of the Opera, Stomp, and Tony N TIna's Wedding.
Shows
Never Available included: Jersey Boys, The Lion King, Wicked, and
Young Frankenstein.
The
Times Square TKTS booth is notorious for its long lines. But if you show
up around 7:30 pm, you'll find most of the tourists have already purchased
their tickets and run off to dinner...often shrinking the line to a wait
of 5-10 minutes. In addition, some of the most popular shows don't release
their prime vacant seats until 7:30 pm, which means your timing could
be rewarded with a VIP spot.
One
of the Times Square TKTS windows is devoted to plays. Therefore, if you're
not aiming for a musical or music-related show, go directly for this window,
which usually has shorter lines.
There's a second TKTS booth at the South Street Seaport. Understandably, this one tends to have fewer customers than its counterpart in the heart of the Broadway district, which means less waiting and hassle. And it's a mere subway ride away.
Times Square TKTS Booth
Location: Inside the Marriot Marquis, at West 46th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue.
Getting There by Subway: Take the 1/2/3/4/5/6/N/R/W/A/C train to the Times Square stop.
Hours for Evening Performance Ticket Sales:
Monday - Saturday: 3:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Sundays: 3:00 pm until 30 minutes before the last curtain time available
Hours for Matinee Performance Ticket Sales:
Wednesdays and Saturdays: 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Sundays: 11:00 am - 3:00 pm
South Street Seaport TKTS Booth
Location: At the corner of Front and John Streets, near the rear of the Resnick/Prudential Building at 199 Water Street.
Getting There by Subway: Take the 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z train to the Fulton Street stop; or take the A/C train to the Broadway-Nassau stop.
Getting There by Bus from Midtown: Take the M15 traveling downtown on 2nd Avenue to the South Street Seaport.
Hours for Evening Performance Ticket Sales:
Monday - Saturday: 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sundays: 11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Matinee Performance Ticket Sales:
Matinee tickets are sold the day beforehand at South Street Seaport. Specifically, Wednesday matinee tickets are sold on Tuesday; Saturday matinee tickets on Friday; and Sunday matinee tickets on Saturday. (For example, if you showed up Saturday morning, you could buy tickets for Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon, but not for Saturday afternoon.)
For more information, please visit the Theatre Development Fund's site at TDF.org.
or
Discount Theatre Tickets via Discount Codes
The TKTS booths are great if you're okay with waiting on a potentially long line, and are open to whatever shows and whatever seats for those shows happen to be available when it's your turn at the ticket window.
If you want to plan an evening, though, it's best to buy tickets in advance, which allows you to carefully select both the show you want and your reserved seats. (In addition, certain shows won't go through the TKTS booth but will offer discount codes.) You usually can't nab 50% discounts this way; but you can often get around 40% off, which for a party of four will still save hundreds of dollars off the retail price. Here are a few examples (as of September 22, 2007):
$111.25 tickets available for $61.50 (45% off) with discount code AQ4EX62
To avoid service charges, buy at box office: John Golden Theatre, 252 West 45th Street
$65 orchestra/ front mezz. and $55 mid-mezz. tickets (up to 50% off) with discount code BOX9
To avoid service charges, buy at box office: Neil Simon Theatre, 250 West 52nd Street
Forbidden Broadway: Rude Awakening
$60-65 tickets available for $32 (50% off) with discount code BBBX68
To avoid service charges, buy at box office: 47th Street Theatre, 304 West 47th Street
Again, the above are just a few examples. To access tons of theatre discount codes, please visit the following sites:
BroadwayBox.com: The most comprehensive
list of theatre ticket discounts I know of on the Web. If you aren't familiar
with this site, you may find the quality of selections & discounts
jaw-dropping.
Playbill.com's Playbill Club: There are, very
occasionally, shows discounted here that aren't on BroadwayBox.com.
In addition, this site provides discounts for restaurants, and for events
beyond Broadway. (Note: Access
to the discounts section requires joining the Club; but membership is
free.) While you're visiting, check out all the other wonderful features
of Playbill.com, which provides a world of information
about the theatre.
TheaterMania Insiders:
Again, there are very occasionally shows discounted here that aren't on
BroadwayBox.com. Plus, for what it's
worth, this site is way more colorful and fun to use. (Note:
Access to the discounts section requires joining; but membership is free.)
Also be sure to check out this site's comprehensive NYC theatrical show
listings—which
are the best on the Web—by
clicking here.
or
Comp Theatre Tickets via "Seat Filler" Services
Being able to see a NYC stage show for 50% off is fantastic. But if you want to go for near-miraculous, join a "seat filler" theatre service, which will let you catch a wide range of live shows for an incredible $3.50-$4.50 a ticket.
These services exist because there are many shows that, at times, don't manage to sell out a performance. In some cases, these productions want more people to experience them and spread positive word of mouth (especially during the first week or two of the run). In other cases, they simply want to fill vacant seats so the paying customers feel like they're at a popular show and the performers benefit from the energy of a large crowd.
By getting enthusiastic audience members to fill empty seats, these companies are providing a genuinely valuable service to shows; and in the bargain allow you to see off-off-Broadway, off-Broadway, and sometimes even Broadway productions almost for free.
The following are the four primary theatre services for NYC:
Theater Extras (www.theaterextras.com):
Membership is $99 a year. Cost per ticket is $4, which is charged to your
credit card at the time you make your purchase. You can buy up to two
tickets per show. (Alternatively, you can join for $175 a year, which
allows you to purchase up to 4 tickets per show.) This is a flat-out wonderful
service: Its Web site is colorful, informative, and fun to use; it always
provides a large and wide-ranging selection of shows (typically dozens
of them); and $4 is a quite low price (plus 25% of that is donated charities
such as Broadway Cares and Equity Fights AIDS). If you join and want to
do me a good turn, enter hy@hyreviews.com
as the person who referred you; I'll get four free tickets for it.
TheaterMania Gold Club (www.theatermania.com/gold):
Membership is $99 a year. Cost per ticket is $4.50, charged to your credit
card at the time you make your purchase. You can buy up to two tickets
per show. (Alternatively, you can join for $152 a year, which allows you
to purchase up to 4 tickets per show.) Like Theater Extras, this fine
service has a Web site that's colorful and informative; and it's even
easier to use, because it gives you the option of listing shows on a day-by-day
basis. The Gold Club doesn't offer nearly as many shows as Theater Extras,
and also charges 50 cents more per ticket, so if I had to join just one
service it would be TE. That said, the Gold Club provides some shows that
the other services don't; and if you pick high-end productions, you can
make up the cost of membership in just one or two evenings.
Audience Extras (www.audienceextras.com):
The least expensive of the services, membership is $85 a year. In addition,
you must "bank" $30 when joining, and can then apply that money
to your ticket purchases. Cost per ticket is a low $3.50, which is subtracted
from the amount you've "banked." (In other words, your initial
membership fund will buy you eight tickets!) You can purchase up to two
tickets per show. (Alternatively, you can make a tax-deductible contribution
of $50 to The Memorial Foundation for the Arts, an organization Audience
Extras strongly supports. As a "thank you," AE will allow you
to purchase up to 4 tickets per show.) This service is more bare-bones
than Theater Extras and the Gold Club in that its Web site offers no show
images and isn't as much fun to use. Most importantly, the site provides
fewer quality show selections. However, you can't beat the low membership
fee and $3.50 charge. Therefore, Audience Extras can be a reasonable choice
as a backup service; e.g., if a show if available on both TE and AE, you
might as well buy from AE and save 50 cents per ticket.
Play-by-Play (www.play-by-play.com):
Membership is $107 a year. In addition, you must "bank" at least
$15 via your credit card. Cost per ticket is $3.50, which is subtracted
from the amount you've "banked" on the service. You can buy
up to two tickets per show. (Alternatively, if you pay double the membership
fee, $214 a year, you can purchase up to 4 tickets per show. However,
please note this is the steepest upgrade price of the four services.)
Play-by-Play's Web site is the most bare-bones of the four: it offers
few graphics, isn't very informative, and isn't much fun to use; plus
having to "bank" money instead of being charged on a ticket-by-ticket
basis is a nuisance. However, while Play-by-Play offers significantly
fewer shows than Theater Extras, the ones it makes available tend to be
solid; and the per-ticket price of $3.50 is low. Because of the latter,
Play-by-Play is a viable alternative to the Gold Club, which charges $4.50
per ticket.
Bottom line: I'd recommend joining Theater Extras as your primary service.
Because you can quickly save hundreds of dollars in ticket costs using any of these services, though, it can make sense to join a second one as a "backup." While there's enormous overlap among the services, there are times when Theater Extras might not carry a show but your backup service does...and it might be a production you really want to see. Also, because each service is allotted a set number of tickets, a show will often sell out on one service but still be available through another.
If your only interest is in the latest and greatest shows on Broadway, then you should probably stick to buying from TKTS and using discount codes...and, when necessary, paying full price.
But if you're game for exploring all NYC has to offer—especially the myriad of small, quirky, and occasionally breathtaking productions beyond Broadway—joining a theatre service is opening the door to what might prove to be an unforgettable adventure.
Discount Theatre Tickets via TKTS
Discount Theatre Tickets via Discount Codes
Comp Theatre Tickets via "Seat Filler" Services
Other Sites:
Copyright ©2007 Hy Bender
Email: hy@hyreviews.com