Over the years I have spend hundreds of pounds, actually probably closing in if not over a thousand. I would honestly be too scared to count up all of the ticket prices on shows both as touring versions coming to the North East and on many trips down to London for the West End shows.
With all of that though I also stumbled across something called “day seats” if you are not aware these are seats that are sold cheaper on the day of the show direct from the Theatre it is being performed at, usually opening at 10am.
Most day seats were kept in the front row, but that depends on Theatre/Show.
My most recent day seat experience as in October when I went to see Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and I was checking daily at the tickets before I went and no more seemed to be selling. So after stumbling across TheatreMonkey again and seeing the procedure for the tickets, I decided to risk it and managed to get the ticket I had wanted in the front row for nearly half price!
TheatreMonkey.com has an incredible list of what you need to do and the chances for certain shows. READ HERE. It is constantly updated with recent experiences from people who have been buying tickets and how many people were queuing which is certainly useful information, if you just scroll down the price list you can see that it certainly could be worth your while for money saving.
Depending on which show and its current popularity you might just be better off waiting and heading to the Theatre box office. Some places don’t have “day seats” on offer and have a ballot/lottery instead. I know Book of Mormon still do this and I saw a few people outside the Theatre on my last trip in December.
Nice Fish certainly had the best and most hilarious deal, if you turned up to the box office dressed as either a fish or a fisherman you would get free tickets in the boxes, not sure if anyone did this on the day I went to see the play though.
Before fully realising this was a thing back in 2009 when I went to see La Cage Aux Folles (with Graham Norton in it I must add) I got a ticket for more than half price center of the stalls for the Matinee. At the time though I didn’t really think much about it.
Another experience of this was April 2016 the day before doing the London Marathon we went to the Apollo Victoria Theatre and got the lovely Wicked day seats which were in the front row for £29.50 each, fantastic right!
I think this is a very unheard of thing that a lot of people don’t realize about and will save you much more money than going to the ticket booths in Leicester Square, or anywhere else around London. So I really do recommend that you research different options for tickets on a show or shows that you would like to see. I know this is not possible however with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, but they do have a Friday 40 where via email you can apply for tickets for the following week, which I guess with something that is sold out so far in advance then that is certainly a good thing!
The latest ticket news to stop touts is that when the Hamilton tickets for London go on sale you are going to have to pick them up from the Theatre just before the show! I think that is certainly a good way to combat the ridiculous resale prices that have surrounded some shows.
If you would like any more advice or have any questions please comment below and I will do my very best to help you out! As I feel I have picked up some ticket knowledge over the past few years.
