What a great article. I especially love what Ms. Bailey said about the Urban Fellowship. You will al

Some people wellesley inns suites like to plan their theatergoing well in advance; others, wellesley inns suites especially these days, are more interested in a bargain. The TKTS booth is often the first stop for those seeking reduced-price seats to a Broadway show. The booth in the theater district, at a newly refurbished location in Duffy Square , is a relatively quick and convenient place to score tickets. (An interactive feature on the new Times Square booth is here .)
Victoria Bailey, the executive director of the Theater Development Fund , the nonprofit performing arts service organization that operates the city's TKTS booths besides the one in Times Square, there are booths at South Street Seaport and in downtown Brooklyn has some answers.
The booths open at different times depending on the day of the week. The best time to go to the Times Square booth, in terms of evening performances — if you want the shortest wait — is probably 5:30 or 6 p.m. Really anytime after 5:30 there's never a line. Most people get there when we open so the lines are longest then. That's also when we tend to have the most shows available. There's also a play-only line at the Times Square booth. There are hardly any lines for that.
Weather is tricky. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon people want to hang out in Duffy Square so it will be crowded. When it snows there won't be a line. On a cold rainy day you won't have a line. Fall through spring, the weather can make a difference.
A show may not be at the booth when it opens, but tickets may still be sent over at 4:30 or 5. The theater may have house seats that they haven't used. If there's no traffic at the box office, tickets will go to the booth. Producers know that there are people at the booth who are going to buy tickets that day. You send a ticket there, chances are high that you will sell it.
They can sell all their tickets at full price, or as many of them as they feel they need to. When the time comes and the market slows down for them, they will come to us. We're always there in the waning days of a show's life, which because of the booth can go on for years. It helps keep shows running at the point where they have other competition. "Cats" ran longer wellesley inns suites than it would have because of the booth.
Our mission is in large part to promote conversations about theater. You do that in person. The booth is kind of a town square. About 30 to 35 percent of people there are first-time Broadway attendees. There is anxiety about what to see. You hear those conversations within a few minutes of getting there.
It's hard to believe because the lines are moving so quickly but almost every transaction involves a series of questions: wellesley inns suites "I'm interested in ABC show, but which show has the best seats or the steepest discounts?" There is an urban fellowship about that experience.
Broadway Bargains: Answers to Your TKTS Questions, Part 3 Broadway Bargains: Answers to Your TKTS Questions, Part 2 Broadway Bargains: Answers to Your TKTS Questions TKTS Gets an iPhone App, and Some Extra Human Help, Too An iPhone App Has TKTS Information, but Not Its Endorsement
However, the bit about we don t do have an on-line option because we want to promote conversations is pure party-line propaganda! Every other half-price ticket booth in the United States (Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston etc.) has an on-line option, which is especially helpful for locals. I can think of several reasons wellesley inns suites that New York commercial producers would not want to go this route (it could hurt full price and other sales diminishes the attention getting line on Times Square) but lets not make up stories to justify a purely pragmatic decision.
Some of the best seats I ve gotten to shows have been from the tkts booth. I sat six or eight rows back on the floor for Ave Q (and was able to move even closer at intermission). For Rock of Ages, I was 5th row back on the floor, albeit a bit to the side. There was only a couple of feet of the stage on my side that I couldn t see, though, and it was definitely worth the 50% discount. I also got great mezzanine seats for Next to Normal. Viva tkts!
What a great article. I especially love what Ms. Bailey said about the Urban Fellowship. You will almost never meet a rude person in a tkts line. When you have a big group of people in line who all love theater, they are only too happy to help a newbie pick the right show.
In response to #2, yes you can. I got front row seats to the Wonderful Town revival thanks wellesley inns suites to TKTS, and on a night they were doing a Q A to boot. If I m not mistaken, they ll often release the director s/other production staff s seats if the director doesn t feel like seeing the show that night, and those are usually pretty good.
If people want to get discounted seats online, there are sites that do that. I use TheaterMania and I ve always gotten great seats in advance at a discount. I like that I know exactly where I ll be sitting.
Of course, TKTS is good for last minute decisions when you have the time to spend in line. You just don t know what your seats will be like until you get to the window. I ve had good and not so great seats (I can t tell you how many times I ve been stuck in a box seat) from TKTS. It s a roll of the dice.
I can answer at least one question: I have gotten tickets to many plays at TKTS over the years, and the seats have never been a problem. In fact, I saw The Goat by Edward wellesley inns suites Albee and I ended up in the front row. Usually plays are at smaller wellesley inns suites theaters and there really are no bad seats; generally I ve always felt I d be happy if I was in the back row but have always been pleasantly wellesley inns suites surprised that I wasn t.
Shame that when they budgeted for the new booth, the gorgeous stairs behind it and all of the other bells and whistles, they couldn t find a few extra bucks to replace the burned-out LED display boards.
But be careful if you have one of those conversations on the TKTS line. My dad got his pocket picked at the Times Square TKTS while talking to a very nice woman who, he later realized, was an accomplice.
I was just in NYC last week and saw two shows that I got tickets through TKTS. (I saw Altar Boyz and 9 to 5 both are AMAZING and HYSTERICAL!!) Our experience with TKTS was also stellar. The lines move fast (and I mean fast be ready to make a decision ASAP), the staff out on the street are helpful (ask those people first about what to see), and they keep everyone moving and organized. Our seats were perfect for both as well.
Whenever we come to NY from Atlanta, we always take one night to go TKTS and catch a show. The last time we were there, we were shocked to see tickets to In the Heights with only a 20% discount. We decided to go to the box office and take our chances. We got two obstructed view tickets for $75 each. We missed seeing a very small part of Act 2. So my advice is, if TKTS doesn t work for you, try the box office. You might get lucky like we did.
Couldn t they make the show board bigger and easier to read. The new booth is beautiful, but at the old booth the shows were listed right behind you, so that if your first choices weren t available you could turn around and pick something else.
The replacement usher was much more empathetic wellesley inns suites than the first one. She d moved several people after some folks left at intermission. A nice woman the usher had moved to a better seat switched with me and went back to her original seat, which was better for her.
It wasn t the end of the world to be sold a ticket for an awful seat for a Broadway show, but there s a recession on and $52 is $52! BTW, outside of New York City, $52 is not a bargain for anything Anywhere in the U.S.A., unless one is wealthy to begin with.
For locals who are students, work at non-profits, or fall into certain other categories, there IS an online option it s called becoming a TDF member for $27 a year (at least when I signed up). You can buy tickets a few days in advance, and they re usually around $35. I m not sure what the differences are in what s available through that vs. at the TKTS booth, but if you live here and are flexible and can wait for things to show up on the TDF members list, you can see a lot of great plays toward the end of their runs (I saw The Seagull wellesley inns suites and August: Osage that way). I don t know how good it is for musicals because I m not ever looking to go to those.
I ve never had a bad seat with tickets obtained from TKTS on the other hand, when my friends and I wanted to see Cats many years ago, we ordered tickets months in advance, but had horrible balcony seats with limited view of the stage!
The only problem with TKTS is the amount of time spent waiting in line I don t live in New York, so when I visit the city, I don t want to spend hours in line hoping for tickets to a show I want to see. And if a show is very popular (e.g. Jersey Boys ), you can t get tickets from TKTS anyway.
I love the TKTS booth and have used it regularly for decades. Although there is no question that the redesigned and rebuilt facility is an improvement that is primarily true for the TKTS employees. I think there was a tremendous MISSED opportunity to make the facility better for BOTH the employees and the customers. Why on earth wasn t the redesign made to provide cover for the line . The huge array of seats facing south over Duffy Square have no real relationship to the purpose of TKTS and the line but that could have instead been made into a roof. The TKTS booth in exile on 46th Street really was much more comfortable with respect to protection from the weather. I repeat: a terrible missed opportunity.
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