London theatre tickets - best discount resource?
 

What's the best place to buy discounted tickets for London musicals? Half-price booth, whatsonstage.com or similar, or another vendor?

I'd like to take my six-year-old son to see something fun, such as The Sound of Music, and it would need to be a matinee, but otherwise, I have plenty of flexibility: we're in London for five weeks.

Is going for a last-minute discount the best way, or should I try to book ahead from home, using a website?

The Sound of Music is very often available at the TKTS booth in Leicester Square and you can pretty much, but of course no guarantee, be able to get half price tickets to most Wednesday matinees...

You can also, if you wish to book in advance, check www.broadwaybox.com which often has good discounts for many London shows (click on the part at the top that says London)....Broadway Box generally has the best discounts available for advance tickets.

I think just showing up one half hour to one hour before show time is the best discount. The staff usually know what is still available and to fill the house offer discounted rates. My children and I got seats to Lion King 20 minutes before a performance for 20 pounds each, great seats too.

Denise

Similar to what Denise said, we were offered very low-price tickets to both We Will Rock You and Billy Elliott at the regular ticket agencies in Leicester Sq. right before they were about to close for the night. We could have had either show for 30 pounds each. This was at about 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago.

In addition to these suggestions, you might also want to check out www.theatremonkey.com. There are often some really good discounts listed there.

Hi there phyllis_stein, we had 5 nights in London in May and saw 4 shows. On a previous trip we used the TKTS booth to see WWRU.

This time, although we did keep on eye on the TKTS booth, we literally just wandered up to the theatre ticket box a couple of hours before the show and got what we thought were great bargains. We did have the benefit of not really minding if we missed out and everything we saw was a bonus. Below is a list of what we saw and the prices we paid.

Also our daughter had one day to fill in while passing through London recently and did the same thing for Billy Elliot (which was on her must see list) and paid £28.

Jersey Boys £20 (Tues night my fav')
Fat Pig £35ea (wed matinee really funny)
Billy Elliot £35ea (wed night)
Lion King £30ea (fri night his fav')

Hope it helps.

I am not a fan of TKTS in New York for Broadway, but I get tons of tickets at the TKTS booth in London. It is amazing what great seats I get there for half price. And with a handful of really popular shows, nearly everything is available there.

One problem with some of those other ticket booths (not the separate TKTS building in the "park") is that while they offer tickets they claim to be half price -- often they are the cheap seats and they've sold them to you at full price. Sure they're half of the full priced good seats, but that may not be what you get.

If you are going to the Half Price Tix booth (the small concrete hut type structure in Leicester Square - there are many others that are not official), make sure you are in the right queue for matinees. I think as you face the building and the square, the queue for matinees is to your right, the queue for evening plays is to your left. There will be a sign pointing out which is which.

Kay

When I was in London in June, there no longer were separate queues for matinees and evening performances at TKTS. I don't know if since then they have been re-instituted.

Thank you all so much for your help. Seeing a show with my little boy will add a great deal of enjoyment to our time in London. Getting the tickets on the cheap will add a great deal of flexibility to whatever else we spend money on while there...

There are a bunch of other plays I'd like to see, but that will depend more on babysitters than anything else!

Thanks again.

One last tip that I don't think anyone has mentioned - a lot of London theatres do what are called "day seats" ("rush seats" for those who have done Broadway), which are generally seats in the first row of the stalls/orchestra and are offered at a discounted price. These tickets are sold on the day of the performance at the box office, normally just as the box office is opening. For the most popular shows there's normally a queue, but it's usually not more than an hour long (unless you're trying to see Hairspray!) and will get you a great seat for about 20 pounds. I'd say you've got a good chance of getting tickes for "The Sound of Musio" this way by getting to the theatre at about 9am.

bookmark

My friend and I went to the theatre 2 hours before "Jersey Boys" matinee and got 7th Row center.
TKTS booth in Leicester Square only had in the nose bleed section for more money. So my suggestion is also check with the theatre.

For shows that have been out a while the TKTS booth has good 1/2 price tickets.

Link for more info on TKKS London:

http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/tkts/

valerie218: Are you sure you are talking about TKTS and not one of the &quot;<i>half price</i>&quot; agencies at Leicester Sq.?

TKTS sells the best available seats and if all they had were actually in the nosebleed upper balcony, they would not have cost more than 7th row Stalls through the theatre box office. Plus, Jersey Boys is hardly ever available at TKTS.

I too was questioning that comment about &quot;nosebleed&quot; seats for Jersey Boys. I've NEVER known TKTS to even sell upper balcony seats. Normally they ONLY have the top price tickets (better seating). It's not unusual to get the first row, but I've never heard of getting nosebleed seats there. That actually does sound like some of the other booths in the area. They tell you the tickets are half price (well, they are half price of the expensive seats) but often are the cheap seats that sell full price for LESS than their discounted price. But that's NOT TKTS.

And Valerie, I'm confused. Are you saying the theatre sold you those great seats at HALF price the day of the show? Or were they full price? With a top show like that, full price is fine, but your response gave me the impression you paid less than full price.

Great advice everyone! Thank you!

We had great experiences with the TKTS in Leicester square. Got AMAZING seats to all the shows we bought tickets to....front and center. When we wanted to see Mousetrap they even referred us down to the theatre itself so that we wouldn't pay the &quot;handling fee&quot; that TKTS charges (like 2 pounds.) FYI, if you're seeing Mousetrap, there are NO half-price tickets (something about it going to a fund) and I personally wouldn't waste my money. It wasn't that great a show. We got great tickets to No Man's Land, and Avenue Q. If you even remotely enjoy Harry Potter, go see &quot;Potter Potted.&quot; Those guys were brilliant, it was family friendly, and a great laugh. Likewise, La Clique's show is great, but no one under 18 allowed.

My mistake: The tickets we tried to get at the Ticket booth were at the other side of Leicester Square. They were for tickets way in the back but when we went to the Theatre we got 7th row center for 60 pounds.

valerie, good point. Most of those other &quot;official&quot; tickets booths are NOT official (unless you want to &quot;officially get ripped off). The usual ploy is to say &quot;we have tickets for half price&quot; -- citing the usual full price tickets, and then selling you some rear balcony seats for half that amount, even though at the theatre they'd be way less than that. Then if you ask if they have better seats, they may come up with some more decent ones for &quot;more money&quot; often more than the regular box office price.

There is only ONE half price booth to use in London and that is the one right in the park at Leicester Square -- the separate building! (Or it's cousin at Canary Wharf if you happen to venture out there).