How to Get Cheap Broadway Tickets in June 2026

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, up to 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. The booth closes at 8pm. 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, but unlike the Times Square booth, it closes at 6pm.

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 a $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.)

Most Broadway shows now conduct digital lotteries on the morning of or just 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 lotteries, consult the handy listings at Broadway on a Budget or Playbill (which offers both Broadway and Off Broadway guides).

It's easy to play—lotteries just need your basic information and you need to keep trying for them until you get 'em. When you win, you have a limited time to accept and pay before they're released.

Did you miss today's digital lottery? Don't skip the theater tonight. Check out Broadway.com's current inventory for tonight's performances to find last-minute mezzanine and balcony seating that fits your budget.

Want to how to avoid broadway ticket fees and find very good seats? Theaters sell tickets 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.) Some theaters also have cancellation lines at the box office for tickets that become unexpectedly available on the day of the show.

To rush for tickets, you stand in line at the box office, which has saved a limited number of discounted tickets to the show of the day. They go to the people who have waited in line that day—some people show up to rush for tickets as early as 3:30am for a 10am box office opening—and the tickets are cheap (about $49)! Check Playbill's roundup of rush policies here.

Tickets from resale outlets—formerly known as scalpers—usually cost more, not less. But 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 Broadway ticket lottery apps and 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. On the day of the show, you can sometimes find good prices among the Last-Min options on the resale app Theatr, but you’ll want to refresh the screen often to scoop them up before anyone else.

For $42, 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 Go Off-Off and Beyond program, which is a $5 monthly membership fee. And most of the city's major theater companies offer subscription packages: You pay a fee upfront (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, Second Stage, New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company or Ars Nova.

Groups of ten people or more can get discounted tickets by buying in a block. The exact size of the discount varies from show to show and may also depend on the date of the performance. Group sales are handled separately from individual ticketing: You’ll need to write an email to apply for them. But many websites, Broadway.com, have pages devoted to facilitating this process. One less obvious advantage of buying this way is that you save on the processing fees that usually get tagged on to ticket sales—and which can add up very fast.

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 18 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.

Twice a year, in January and September, you can avail yourself of the two-for-one deals offered through the Broadway Week program (which actually spans several weeks). In February and October, you can avail yourself of similar savings through the Off-Broadway Week initiative. Tickets for both usually go on sale about two weeks before they start; the earlier you buy, the better your chances of landing good seats. 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.

Not only are you likely to find better seats if you attend a show early in the week—on Tuesdays through Thursdays, and especially on Wednesday matinees—but tickets to these performances are often cheaper than on weekends, when there’s more demand for them. The same is true of performances in the less busy months of the year: January and February are especially good times to find deals, and September is also relatively better.