Hey everyone! It's Sarah and today I'm going to be talking about how to get cheap
tickets to Broadway shows. Now if you're visiting the city or if you live in the
city and you want to go to Broadway, you'll quickly realize that the tickets
can be extremely expensive. And if you want the best seat in the house you kind
of have to pay top dollar but today I'm going to be going through five ways that
you can get discounted or cheap ticket to some of the best shows that are
playing today here in New York.
Now the classic way is to wait in line on the day of the show at the TKTS by
TDF booth that's in the center of Times Square near the red steps. Here you'll
find practically 50% off all tickets for all shows except for the mega hits. There
are two other locations besides the Times Square one. The two locations are near
Lincoln Center's David Rubenstein atrium, which is on Broadway and 62nd Street. The
great part about this location is actually it's indoors which is a huge
bonus especially when the weather's not good
and in the winter. That is like - oh my god - that is such a blessing to be able to
wait inside because so freezing. Especially January. The other TKTS booth is located in
downtown Brooklyn. This is on the corner of a J Street and Myrtle Avenue. If you
want to go to a matinee show make sure you go the day before because they sell
those tickets a day early. A matinee show it normally happens around 2 p.m.
Whereas if you're going to an evening show you want to go the day of that show
and that's when you can get 50% off those tickets. One important thing to
note is that you can only buy 6 tickets per person and that there is a
$5 to $6 fee on top of the ticket cost which is actually substantially lower
than what you'll get online. All ticketing fees benefit the
non-for-profit TDF which helps bring at the power of Performing Arts to everyone
through initiatives like their autism friendly performances. So that's one way
let's go into the next way right now.
Now let's dive right into number two which is using the TodayTix app.
This is beneficial because it allows you to get discounted tickets up to a
month in advance. Using the TodayTix app helps give you a better idea of what
show you'll see and you can kind of plan your schedule a little bit in advance.
Now on this app you may not get as steep of a discount as you would at the TKTS
by TDF booth but you will be able to book in advance which is a huge benefit
especially if you want to plan a lot of things in New York and you don't want to
leave stuff up to chance. However, there are a few other options for online
ticket sales there's four websites in particular that you can use as a
resource if you don't find the show that you want or the price that you want of
that show on TodayTix. The websites you should check are New York Show Tickets,
Broadway Box, Theatremania, and Gold Star. And I'll link to all of those things
below this video. Keep in mind that you're going to have a higher per-ticket-fee
on top of that. It's going to be about $10 to $15 so just
prepare for that. On top of the discount. Just a heads up!
If you want to get discounted tickets to the more popular shows. Now I'm talking
Hamilton, The Lion King, Wicked, Chicago - things like that. Then you're going to
need to try the rush tickets or the lottery strategy. Now rush tickets is
when you show up to the box office the moment it opens which is normally around
10:00 a.m. most days and they sell essentially whatever is left which may
not be the best seats but it's about twenty dollars I did this for Chicago a
few years ago and it works out great. The other option is doing the lottery. Now
more and more shows are starting to do this, especially the big popular ones. This is
where you go to the theater a few hours before the show starts and you write
your name on a piece of paper. They then draw a winner out of all the
people that enter their names and that person will get a severely discounted
tickets and sometimes the seats are fantastic. I'm just gonna go
through a few of the offers that they're going on right now that's been pretty
consistent over the last year and these are things that you can check out when
you're here if you want to see some of the best, the biggest hits on Broadway
The most competitive a lottery tickets are Hamilton, of course. They offer 46
seats at $10 every day. The other one is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which
they hold their lottery once a week on Fridays. But to see a list of all the
lotteries that are happening while you're here you can go to Broadway for
the Broke People. I'm putting their website below so you
can check out that and that will give you access to a lot of the big hits that
aren't normally found at the TKTS by TDF booth or TodayTix app and on the
other ways that you can get discounts tickets.
If the show you wanna see is not available on the other ways that I
mentioned then I recommend is going straight to the box office where you can
avoid the expensive service fee associated with buying online and also
if you go the day of the show sometimes the seats that were previously held for
house seats or premium seats that didn't get sold will now be released back to
the public and they'll lower the prices of those and that way you can get in to
pretty decent seats at a a lower cost than what you would normally get. The
other great thing about this is that the box office attendee can help guide you
as to where to sit in the theater to get the best seat for your money.
Now number five sadly doesn't apply to everyone but it's be a young person.
If you're under the age of 35, or 30 depending on the program, you can
actually qualify to get discounted tickets through many of the nonprofit
theater organizations here in the city. Theater goers ages 18 to 35 can buy
tickets to the roundabout theater company for just $25 per show by joining
its HipTix program. 21 to 35 can join Lincoln Center's theater LincTix program which
offers $32 tickets at all shows. And then finally you have Manhattan Theatre Club
the 30 under 30 program which allows patrons 30 or younger to buy tickets
for $30. If you're not qualified in one of those
categories but you're a student or your teacher then you're actually in luck in
a different way because you qualify for discount tickets through other
programs. Librarians, teachers, and students can pick up vouchers for 30 to
50 percent off through the school theater ticket program and students ages
13 to 18 can buy five dollar tickets to certain off and off off-broadway
productions through the high five tickets to the arts.
Now for some bonus
tips! I actually used to work on Broadway and they know a bit more about
Broadway than the average guide would know and for that reason I wanted to
share two little tips for going to see a Broadway show, in addition to the ones I
already shared. Number one, if you're here in January that is the cheapest time to
see if Broadway shows and as far as the day of the week that's cheapest it's
generally Tuesdays and Wednesdays or matinee performances mid-week are the
cheapest. Aim for those and if you can stack a discount on top of that then
you are set and you are seeing that show for the lowest price possible.
Good for you. Great work! Yes.
Thank you for watching! If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe, follow me on
instagram at @SarahFunky, and watch my other videos on New York. I have tons of
them a tourist traps, thing to do, things see, and much, much more. I will see you
next time. Bye!