Broke on Broadway
As a musical theater geek, I try to see as many shows as I possibly can.
As a college student, especially in Manhattan, I only have the money to do so much.
However, I seem to be seeing a ridiculous amount of shows, particularly for someone who claims to never have any money.
The thing is though, of the 20 something Broadway shows I’ve seen since December 2017, I’ve never paid more than $69 (Book of Mormon on an impulse) of my own money on a ticket. Since I kind of have a rush (a pun that will make more sense in a minute) from winning the Book of Mormon lottery less than 16 hours ago, I’m now going to explain many of the different ways and some tips save your money when shopping for Broadway tickets.
- Rush tickets. Rush tickets. Rush tickets. I can’t emphasize how many shows I’ve seen through this program. Essentially, you wait at the box office before it opens and get up to 2 extremely discounted same-day tickets (typically $30-$42 flat). These tickets are given out to the discretion of the box office. They have a limited amount of seats that they have set aside, and they never tell you how many. Also, since it’s first come first serve, the best seats available are given to those first in line. In other words, you want to get there as early as possible. How early will get you the best seats possible? Well, that all depends on the show.
In general, I recommend getting to the box office around 7:30/8 for pretty much guaranteed seats. You’ll probably be between 3rd and 5th in line, but it’s close enough to the front that you’re more likely than not to get a seat for the performance. This of course is a general rule of thumb with some factors that could contribute such as…
Time of year: Is BroadwayCon happening? Any other major events that would bring theater appreciators and aspiring actors to the city who wouldn’t ordinarily be there? Is it warm outside? While not everyone enjoys rushing at any capacity, more people are willing to wait overnight on a warm night in July than a snowy day in February.
Day of the week (this one is particularly important during the school year): Is it a day when everyone is off from school or work? It will be easier to get tickets to a Wednesday matinee as opposed to a Saturday evening in just about all cases.
Celebrities: Is there anyone notable currently in it? I rushed Waitress the day before Jeremy Jordan announced that he would be in the show. Tickets that day were significantly easier than they are now that he and Shoshana Bean are headlining.
Timing of the show: How long has it been open for? Is it supposed to close any time soon? For example, you’re more likely to get tickets if it’s Chicago that’s been open for years and not closing anytime soon as opposed Anastasia during its final days. In this example, I would arrive at Chicago around 7:30/8 and Anastasia 6:30/7.
In my personal experience, it’s a lot easier to get tickets to a show that recently opened rather than a show that is about to close. Of course, all of THAT also depends on…
Tony’s: This one is especially important between right now and mid-June since the nominations were announced yesterday. How many is it nominated for? How many did it win in the past? How long ago was that win?
Example of how important it is: when A Band’s Visit dominated the awards, tickets were super hard to get for about two weeks, even though closed less than a year later (they had rush for a portion of that time).
Story 1: The first time I ever rushed a show was for Mean Girls and, like a fool, I showed up at 9am and was the very first person in line to not get a ticket. Why do I add “like a fool?” Well, first of all, Mean Girls had been nominated for several Tony awards and hadn’t lost yet, so it was at the peak of its popularity. It was also a beautiful day in May, so the general public had no problem waiting outside in line for tickets. Secondly, the box office opens at 10am, so even if it had been a less-than-popular show, I should have shown up at 8am the absolute LATEST. Keeping in mind, this is an outlier, because most shows won’t be as popular as Mean Girls in May 2018, less than a month after it opened. At that point in time, they also only gave out rush tickets once a week (they now do it every day that they have a show). Even though Elise and I left from New Jersey to GET ON LINE at 6am and stood for the entire show, it was totally worth it. It was the first (but not the last) time we saw the complete original Broadway cast.
Aside: Mean Girls tickets are significantly easier to get now. The second time I rushed was in October. I got in line at 5:30am and was the only person in line for an hour, but we got front row seats.
Story 2: For my birthday, my mom and I rushed to see Pretty Woman. It was an uncomfortably cold day in December two weeks before Christmas, so no one wanted to be on line any earlier than they had to. We got on line at 7:30am and were the only ones there for about an hour. But again: front row seats.
Story 3: More of a brag than an anecdote, but I rushed tickets to Beetlejuice this weekend. My friend and I wanted to be there at 6:30am since it had just opened two days before, but I overslept and he didn’t get there until 7:30am. Fortunately for us, it didn’t get nominated for a whopping 8 Tony’s until yesterday morning, so he was fourth in line.
Story 4: I saw a Bronx Tale the day before it closed. It was pouring rain outside. Tickets were not available in pairs, so it sold pretty well. However, for rush, there were only about five people in line. This was is in part because of the rain, but also because it wasn’t that popular of a show, I never heard anyone talk about it (which BTW I’m upset about because it’s one of my favorites).
Bonus tip: Bring something to sit on. NYC sidewalks can be very dirty. If you bring a chair, however, they will charge you $3 to check it in at the theater.
Aside: Disney never takes part in these.
Addition on 9/10: Be sure to check the day before if rush is still available. I wanted to rush Beetlejuice again this October (since they have extra cool playbills for Halloween month) and now they only have a digital lottery *single teardrop* But it’s better to find out now than at the box office. The way to check is referenced at the end of this article.
Another reason rush lines are so fun: it’s not something that a ton of people know about, so it’s mostly kids who are really into theater, and more often than not I’ve made friends while rushing (especially when I’m with Elise because we’re both in our element and just, wow I miss her. Elise if you’re reading this hi hello I can’t wait to see you and Ben in EXACTLY SEVEN DAYS). It’s really fun to be part of a community that will go to the same lengths that I will to see a live performance that won’t cost an arm and a leg.
2. The more popular shows (such as Hamilton or Dear Evan Hansen) do not have a rush line. Now, I have not personally done this one yet, but cancellation lines can be pretty neat. It’s pretty similar to rush in terms of waiting, but the difference is that these seats are not set aside. You’re waiting for people to call into the box office who have already purchased tickets to be like “hey I can’t make it for this reason, cancel my ticket” and the line starts on a first come, first serve basis. For shows like Hamilton, some people are willing to sleep on the streets of NYC for a chance to achieve these discounted tickets. Edit: I just looked back on the policies and while Hamilton had this at one point, it appears that now only Cursed Child has this policy.
3. Another option is Standing Room Only. Generally speaking, the rule is that if a show sells out, they have tickets available to stand behind the orchestra for the duration of the performance. You can purchase one at a time.
Aside: I have stood during shows twice, since that’s what was available during rush after running out of seats. It was totally worth it for Mean Girls. Not a fan of it during To Kill a Mockingbird. TKAM was a great show, but it’s a straight play, so I was distracted by how badly I wanted to sit down. Whether SRO is worth it or not depends on your tolerance.
4. Digital lottery, after rush, is my favorite way to get discounted tickets. Essentially you enter your name online, and you could win a chance to purchase up to 2 super discounted tickets, ranging from $30-$42 (including fees). Some shows have it so you enter once and are entered for the whole week, the more popular shows have it where you can only enter the day of. I’ve won three times (Escape to Margaritaville [had no interest in seeing so I didn’t go], Kinky Boots [didn’t have anyone to go with so I didn’t go, I did eventually see it and not going the first time is one of my biggest regrets], and Book of Mormon [won that for tonight, literally the whole reason I’m writing this]). There’s no waiting involved, so if you don’t win tickets it’s kind of a bummer, but not as enraging as waiting for an hour or more to find out that you weren’t even close to being early enough. Honestly, I completely forgot that I entered the lotteries so when I won them, it was a pleasant surprise. I’d embed a link, but all of the digital lotteries are different for each show. There are also in-person lotteries, but I haven’t tried that so I can’t vouch for it. You can’t control your odds at all because you either get picked or you don’t, so I don’t plan on trying it in the future (unless it’s a show I really wan to see at the last performance and that’s the only way to get a ticket or something along those lines).
5. TodayTix and TKTS have been pretty good to me as well. I did these before I knew about rush. They’re very similar to each other.
TodayTix: App / website that sends discounts directly to your phone, fees included. Discounts can be anywhere from 10%-75% off original prices.
TKTS: An app / website so you can see what shows are on there, but you have to be at the booth in person in order to purchase the tickets. They typically only have the shows that aren’t doing overly well. They have anywhere from 10%-50% off tickets, but since they open at 11am in Times Square (10am in Seaport) and you have no idea what they’re taking that percentage away from, it’s probably best to stick with rush unless you’re a member of TDF (a yearly subscription that gives you access to exclusive ticket deals).
Note: They do not set tickets aside for either of these promotions, so it’s simply what the box office did not sell and there is no guarantee that a show will be available for very long, even if you saw it on the app or website.
- Less than success story: The week Les Mis was closing, I went with a group of friends and my mom to the TKTS booth. 25% off still meant $112 per ticket, which I could not afford being a high schooler that only worked weekends for minimum wage and all. They didn’t seem to have any tickets under $100 that day for any show, so we would have not seen a show at all that day had my mother not been there. Also, they have people swaying you which show to see. A different day, someone recommended the Perfect Crime which was a play (not a musical, a play) that was so complex that they handed us answer keys at the end.
- Success story: I did this with my mom multiple times and it was how I was able to see Something Rotten, one of my absolute favorites. When you’re an adult with a real job and dropping $200ish dollars on three tickets isn’t that big of a deal to you (I honestly have no idea what she paid, but I’m guessing around that) and you’d rather spend the extra money if it means you don’t have to spend the extra time, it’s a good alternative.
6. I feel like this one’s pretty obvious but still worth mentioning: literally just walk up to the box office of whatever show it is you want to see and ask what their cheapest tickets are. This one’s a bit riskier, as a lot of times the cheapest that they’ll have is $55-$100. However, if it’s not that popular of a show, you might get lucky and be able to get rush tickets at 11:30am. They also don’t charge fees that pretty much any venue (not just theaters) will charge for purchasing tickets in advance.
When TKTS didn’t work out for me and my friends, my mom went straight to the Disney box office to see what they had available. I was in my Aladdin phase, and she was able to find tickets for me + herself + my four other friends for that exact show at $67 a piece. It was one of my friend’s first Broadway show ever.
I also was able to get rush tickets for Spongebob around 11am.
7. Addition to my list as of September 2019: Broadway Roulette. I have not personally tried this one (yet), but I have a friend who loves it. The way it works is you pick what day you want to see your show, and you specify what type of show (family friendly? Standard? Definitely a musical? Open to anything and everything?). From there, you’ll see a list of shows and select ones you DON’T want to see. You pay on the spot, and the show gets picked for you on the day you’re supposed to see it. They text you the name of the show, the theatre, and the theatre’s address. Tickets are between $49 and $59 (not sure if that includes fees or not).
8. There are some other cool promotions that happen every so often, like Kid’s Night on Broadway (every February, there’s a “buy one adult, get two kids tickets free + a meal” type deal) which is how I saw Aladdin for the first time and Wicked. And of course, there are always things like Groupon.
9. Get someone else to pay for you is obviously a cheaper alternative to all of these.
That’s all I can really think of for now, but these are how I’ve seen over 20 shows in less than two years. Of course, there’s always the obvious buying tickets before getting into the city to make absolutely 100% certain that you’ll have seats, but that’s not the broke college student way. Also, all of these things (especially rushing) are ultimately a really fun experience. It’s comforting to know that there’s a whole community of people who are also willing to do some pretty crazy things (like sacrifice sleep) in order to achieve their Broadway-themed goals.
Oh, and if you’re interested in what specific shows have which policies (rush, standing room, digital lotteries, etc), Playbill has an article that I have referenced on more than one occasion.
Hope this helps! Good luck with your Broadway endeavors, and feel free to reach out to me personally if you use this as a reference in the future :)
