How to get cheap Broadway tickets in five easy steps

The classic way to find deeply discounted tickets is to wait in line, on the day of the show, at TDF’s TKTS Booth under the red steps in Duffy Square (47th Street and Broadway). All but the biggest Broadway hits are on sale there, mostly at 50 percent off. If you are not looking to see a musical, the Times Square booth has a "Play Express" window that will cut down your wait time. The Times Square TKTS Booth is open every day of the week, starting at 3pm for evening performances and 11am for matinees (on Wednesdays, Thursdays and weekends). You can buy tickets to either same-day performances or next-day matinee performances. 

In addition to its flagship Times Square location, TDF operates another booth at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium (Broadway at 62nd Street), which opened in 2016. It’s only 15 blocks from the main booth but it’s far less crowded—and it’s indoors, which is a big plus in inclement weather. The Lincoln Center outpost is open from 11am every day except Sunday and Monday.

As a general rule, the earlier you get to TKTS the better, but blocks of good seats are sometimes released closer to curtain time. To see what is available on a given day, download the TKTS app or visit its website. You can buy up to six tickets per person at a time; there is $5–$6 fee per ticket, which is substantially lower than the fees on most ticketing websites.

Great a resource as it is, TKTS has limitations: You have to wait there in person, often for a long time, and you can only get tickets on the day of the show (or the day before a matinee). Thankfully, the Internet provides alternatives. The popular TodayTix app lets you find discounted tickets on your mobile phone up to month in advance; discount deals are listed alongside tickets being sold at regular prices. Another reliable online source for cheap Broadway seats is New York Show Tickets; membership there costs about $5 per month. Good discounts can be also be found at BroadwayBox, TheaterMania and Playbill. Consider visiting all of these options and shopping around for the best bargain. And in January and September, you can avail yourself of the two-for-one deals offered through the Broadway Week program. (But remember: The usual online ticketing fees, generally $10 to $15 per ticket, tend to apply when you use these discounts, and that can bite into your savings.)

Many productions offer special same-day rush tickets, which in some cases are the only way to get tickets at a reasonable price for shows that are otherwise sold out. Rush tickets to Broadway and Off Broadway shows can sell for as little as $20 apiece. Go to the theater's box office as soon as it opens on the day of the performance to check; that means 10am on most days, and 11am or noon on Sundays. Conveniently, some shows offer mobile rushes through TodayTix. (If you don’t mind being on your feet, you should also consider getting standing-room tickets, which likewise go on sale daily when the box office opens.)

Most Broadway shows also now conduct digital lotteries on the morning of or the before each performance, either on their own or through TodayTix. But perhaps the most competitive of these lotteries are held weekly: the Hamilton lottery (which offers 46 $10 seats a day) and the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child lottery, both of which are now held once a week on Fridays. To find out which shows offer rush tickets and lotteries, consult the handy listings at Broadway on a Budget or Playbill (which offers both Broadway and Off Broadway guides).

If the show you want to see is a big hit, you probably won’t be able to secure a discounted ticket, but there are still ways of minimizing the amount you’ll pay. Buying tickets directly at the box office will let you avoid cumbersome service fees, and you can sometimes find very good seats—formerly reserved for house seats or premium sales—that have only recently been added back to the ticket pool and have not yet been scooped up and marked up by scalpers on the resale market. (Be nice to the box office attendants and they may give you some tips.) And speaking of the resale market: You can sometimes snag tickets at great prices if you are willing to go to the theater right before the show begins. Even for very popular shows, prices on sites like StubHub and TicketNetwork can fall dramatically right before curtain time, as vendors scramble to unload their unsold tickets. If you’re in the right place at the right time, you might get lucky.

For $40, if you're eligible, you can get an annual membership to TDF, which lets you use ticket deals days or weeks before the show. TDF also lets you see Off-Off Broadway shows for just $11 through its OffOff@9 program. And most of the city's major theater companies offer membership packages: You pay a fee up front (say, $65) in return for discounted tickets all year; what's more, you get the chance to buy tickets before they go on sale to the general public, which can be a big deal when it comes to shows with a lot of advance buzz. The trick is to pick companies that showcase consistently strong work, such as the Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company or Ars Nova.

The city’s biggest nonprofit theaters all have programs aimed at encouraging younger audiences. Theatergoers ages 18 to 40 can buy tickets to Roundabout Theatre Company for just $30 per show by joining its Hiptix program. If you're between 21 and 35, you can join Lincoln Center Theater's LincTix program, which offers $32 tickets to all shows. Manhattan Theatre Club’s 30 Under 35 program, as the name suggests, allows patrons 35 or younger to buy tickets for $30. Other major companies, such as Playwrights Horizons, also offer programs for young theatergoers.