I love living in New York City, and I enjoy going to see Broadway shows, but I almost never pay the outrageous price of Broadway show tickets. Most people visiting New York already know about waiting on line to buy tickets at TKTS, but even those tickets can be costly and the selection can be less than ideal.
A few weeks ago, I won tickets to see the hugely popular show, Book of Mormon. I WON TICKETS TO SEE BOOK OF MORMON!! Actually, I won the right to buy two tickets to the next day’s show for $32 per ticket – – the Book of Mormon has a daily Twitter Lottery, where you simply Retweet the Book of Mormon‘s lottery tweet, and those chosen have the right to purchase 2 tickets to the next day’s performance. I believe you have to be a New York resident to enter the Twitter Contest, so this won’t work for many visitors. As instructed, I picked up the tickets at the box office the next day. Seats A101 and A102. Holy Shit! FRONT ROW CENTER! (selling for $252 apiece). Yes, Dorothy, dreams really do come true! Here’s what the prices are at the box office:
here are my tickets:
I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED THE SHOW! Won’t Run won’t stop singing “Hello…”
Two great ways to get Broadway tickets really cheap – generally between $25 and $40 are Broadway Rush Tickets and Broadway Lottery Tickets. Not all Broadway shows participate in these programs, but many do, including Book of Mormon, Wicked, Once, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Aladdin, Kinky Boots, Chicago, Mama Mia! and many others.
A good place to begin is with NY TIX, which lists the shows that participate in Rushes and Lotteries, and the time the Lottery and/or Rush is held. Of course, the amount of tickets available varies from show to show and day-to-day. Book of Mormon participates in a daily lottery and then, after the lottery, sells tickets for Standing Room Only for the evening performance.
Generally, Rush tickets are usually given out to those who wait on line, and sold first come, first served. Availability depends on the popularity of the show as well as the day of the week, among other factors. Lotteries, on the other hand are held at a specific time each day and the box office begins taking names for the lottery at a given time before the drawing. It is luck of the draw, as they say….
The NYTIX website is extremely helpful. Below is the chart for Friday to Sunday, listing which shows participate in Rush ticketing (Orange) and those that participate in Lottery ticketing (Blue) as well as the time the Rush/Lottery is held. After researching on the NYTIX website, I would suggest looking up the individual show or theatre for additional information and then heading over to Times Square!
website: http://www.nytix.com/Links/Broadway/lotteryschedule.html#LOTTERY
Enjoy the show!
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
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