How I won a Broadway ticket lottery ... twice
|
*Note: This article contains information about my
experiences entering Broadway ticket lotteries in September
and October 2019. Whenever I'm in New York, I try to see a Broadway show ... or two ... or three. That can get expensive, so I always keep a look out for ways to find discounted tickets to the shows on my bucket list. A few years ago, I learned about the online Broadway ticket lotteries. These lotteries aren't a chance to win free tickets to Broadway shows. Instead, people enter to win the opportunity to purchase deeply-discounted last-minute tickets to top Broadway shows. There are multiple sites that run online Broadway ticket lotteries, including Telecharge, Lucky Seat, Broadway Direct, and TodayTix. At the time of this writing, Telecharge runs the lotteries for Ain't Too Proud, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Beetlejuice, Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen, Oklahoma, and The Phantom of the Opera. Aladdin, Hamilton, The Lion King, Wicked, and Tootsie are with Broadway Direct. The Book of Mormon, Frozen, Mean Girls, Hadestown, and Moulin Rogue! The Musical are with Lucky Seat. TodayTix runs the Friday Forty lottery ($40 tickets ($20 per part)) for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (which is a play rather than a musical, but landed on my Harry Potter Bucket List). You can find up to date information on Playbill.com. They have a page that lists Broadway shows and their discount ticket policies. If there is a particular show you're interested in, you may want to check out their official website as well.  A portion of the playbill.com page that lists Broadway shows and their discount ticket policies. In my story here on mydreamcametrue.com about what it's like to enter the Broadway ticket lotteries, you can read about how my mom and I entered the lotteries many times and never won. I had actually begun to think that it was downright impossible to win. But then something happened to change my thinking about the Broadway ticket lotteries ... I won ... TWICE. It was September 2019, and I was visiting New York for an entire month. My mom and I planned to enter the Broadway ticket lotteries every day for Hadestown, Frozen, Hamilton, and Mean Girls. On the Friday before I arrived in New York, we entered the lotteries for the Sunday shows. As I expected, we lost. Undeterred, on Monday, we entered for the shows on Tuesday. At 11:23 AM on Monday morning, I heard the ping of a text message on my cellphone. I checked my phone and was shocked to see: "You won Lucky Seats to Frozen ... Check your email for details." (Note: Not all lotteries offer the option of receiving a text message if you win.) I couldn't believe it. I'd finally won a Broadway ticket lottery! Bursting with happiness, I opened my email account and saw a message from Frozen Lottery. The subject: "You won the FROZEN ticket lottery!"  A portion of the email I received from Lucky Seat. I clicked on the link in the email to purchase our tickets. The total purchase price for 2 tickets to Tuesday's show was $70 ($60.00 for the tickets plus a $10.00 service fee). There was no indication of which seats in the theater we would receive, but a quick look at the ticket availability for the Tuesday show on Ticketmaster.com revealed that there were still plenty of orchestra and mezzanine seats available, so we took a leap of faith. After I submitted my credit card information, I received an immediate email receipt from Lucky Seat Frozen. It informed us that our tickets would be waiting for us at the box office tomorrow evening. On Tuesday evening, about an hour before showtime, Mom and I arrived at the St. James Theatre to claim our tickets. I presented my driver license to the woman at the box office, telling her that I was a lottery winner. She plucked a small stack of envelopes from her desk, opened one, and handed me the tickets inside. Our seats were in the Balcony, Row H, Seats 1 and 3. (A bit of research revealed that the cost of these seats for members of the general public on Ticketmaster.com (or at the box office) was $57.50 each.) I decided to visit the Hadestown box office to purchase regularly-priced tickets to that show, since Hadestown was a must-see show for me, and I wanted to ensure that our seats would be very close to the stage. I considered continuing to enter the Hadestown lottery to try to win discount tickets, but I figured that our chances of winning that lottery was extremely low because the show was so popular. At the Walter Kerr Theatre box office, I purchased two tickets for a matinee of Hadestown the following week. As I stepped away from the ticket window, two women approached it. "We're lottery winners," one of the women said to the woman behind the glass. After they retrieved their tickets for that evening's show, I asked them the general location of the their tickets. Their seats were not together, they told me. One was in a box and one in the mezzanine. Mom and I continued to enter the lottery for Hamilton and Mean Girls, but we weren't having any luck. Early one Sunday morning, we decided on a whim to enter the lotteries for the Aladdin and The Lion King shows that day. It was the first time either of us had entered for either of these shows. Just after the lottery closed (at exactly 9AM that morning), I checked my email. I was shocked to see the subject on my email from Broadway Direct Lottery: "ALADDIN (NY) ... Lottery Results - YOU WON!"  A portion of the email I received from Broadway Direct. The email contained all the details. The total purchase price for 2 tickets to that night's show was $66 ($60.00 for the tickets plus a $6.00 handling fee). I needed to claim my tickets no later than 10AM that day or they would be released. There was no indication of where in the theater the tickets would be. A quick check of the ticket availability on Ticketmaster showed excellent ticket availability for that night's show but, based on our experience with Frozen, I knew that ticket availability was no indication of what type of seats the lottery winners receive. I decided to take another leap of faith. I clicked the link to pay for our tickets and received a confirmation email. That evening, we arrived at the New Amsterdam Theatre box office to pick up our tickets for Aladdin. When I presented my driver license to the man at the ticket window, he plucked an envelope from a small stack and handed me two tickets. The seats were in the Right Mezzanine, Row KK, Seats 14 and 16. (Checking online, I found that the cost of our seats for members of the general public on Ticketmaster.com or at the box office was $87.50 each.) For the remainder of my month-long stay, we continued to enter the lotteries for Hamilton and Mean Girls every day, but we didn't win either of these lotteries. I did, however, have a lucky moment, the luckiest of the entire trip ... I wanted to see Waitress before it closed on Broadway (Waitress was scheduled to close in January 2020), and so this trip was my last chance. The show was not offering an online lottery. In the past, the show had offered $40 in-person rush tickets ("Rush tickets" are discounted same-day tickets offered to people who line up at the box office before it opens). When I checked online and on the show's official website for information on the show's current rush policy, I found no information. I decided to stop by the Brooks Atkinson Theatre to ask whether rush tickets were still offered. The Waitress box office opened at 10AM, but I arrived at 11AM, a time when rush tickets are generally long gone. I asked the woman at the box office if they had a single rush ticket for that evening's show. I fully expected her to say no, or that the show no longer offers rush tickets. Instead, she said with a smile, "As a matter of fact, I do!" "Can you tell me where the seat is?" I asked. "Row C, seat 7, in the Orchestra," she replied pointing out the location on the theater map. I couldn't believe my eyes or ears. Excitedly, I purchased that rush ticket for $40 (there were no additional service or handling fees). Afterward, I learned that the regular price for this seat for members of the general public on Ticketmaster.com or at the box office was $159! (As I was leaving the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, another woman came to inquire about a single rush ticket for that night's performance. She was offered Orchestra Row M, seat 1.) I spent that Tuesday afternoon at the nearby Intrepid Museum, my heart swimming with delighted anticipation of the evening to come, feeling like I'd won the lottery!  The view from my rush seat for Waitress. Will I be playing the Broadway ticket lotteries next time I’m in New York? I sure will! I did this in September and October 2019. ~ Jen (California, USA) |
||||||||||
|