How to buy Broadway tickets — every option, ranked

There are a lot of ways to buy a Broadway ticket and most of the popular advice you’ll find online is written by sites that also sell tickets. This guide is not. EvenAisle doesn’t sell anything — we compare, we recommend, and when you click out we collect a small affiliate commission from the seller. Which path we recommend doesn’t change based on who pays us; only on what’s the best deal for the show, the date, and the seats you actually want.

Here is every legitimate route, ranked by value-for-effort, with the honest tradeoffs.

The seven legitimate ways to buy

There are basically seven channels for any Broadway show. Pick one based on three questions: how flexible is your date, how price-sensitive are you, and how much hassle are you willing to absorb on the day-of.

Channel	Typical price vs. face	Effort	Best for
Official site / box office	Face value	Low	Specific date, specific seats, guaranteed
TodayTix	Face or slight discount	Low	Mobile-first browsing, the occasional flash discount
Digital lottery	$10–$49 flat	Low–Medium	Maximum savings if your date is flexible
In-person rush	$25–$50 flat	High	Same-day savings, you live nearby and like queues
Standing room	$25–$45 flat	Highest	Sold-out hits, no other option
TKTS booth	20–50% off face	Medium	Same-day in NYC, willing to be flexible on show
Resale (StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek)	Above or below face	Low	Sold-out hits or dead weekday nights

The right answer for any given show is rarely the same. That’s why each show page on EvenAisle lists every option side by side and flags our pick. But the channels themselves are worth understanding in plain terms.

1. The official box office / Telecharge / Ticketmaster

This is the boring, dependable path. You go to the show’s official site, pick your date, pick your seats, pay face value plus the standard service fees. No surprises.

When it wins. You need a specific date — an anniversary, a visit-from-out-of-town, a birthday. You want guaranteed seat selection. You want zero day-of-show stress.

When it loses. When a lottery exists for the same show. The official site is rarely the cheapest path for a flexible buyer; it’s just the most certain one.

The hidden trick. Many show pages on the official site have an “obstructed view” or “rear mezzanine” tier that’s substantially cheaper than the listed starting price. The site’s default view often hides it. Click around the seating map before assuming the lowest price you see is the actual lowest tier.

2. TodayTix

TodayTix is a third-party app that aggregates Broadway, off-Broadway, and London. Its inventory is a mix of: official allotments (face price), occasional discounts the producer gives them, and — most importantly — most of the digital lotteries.

When it wins. When you’re already browsing on mobile and want a clean interface. When TodayTix has a discount, it’s usually small but real. And it’s the front door for the lotteries, which we’ll come to next.

When it loses. TodayTix’s “best available” sometimes isn’t actually best available — the official site will occasionally surface a cheaper seat in the same tier. Worth a sanity-check on both before you click buy.

The official Broadway Direct digital lotteries are run through TodayTix, so when you “enter the Wicked lottery” you’re entering it on the TodayTix platform whether you realise it or not.

3. Digital lottery — the single best value for a flexible buyer

This is the answer to “what’s the cheapest legitimate way to see [show]?” for most shows, almost always.

A digital lottery is a daily drawing for a tiny number of seats — typically 20–40 — sold at a fixed cheap price. Common prices are $10, $25, $39, or $49 per ticket, regardless of where the seat lands in the house. Winners usually end up with surprisingly good seats: front mezzanine, orchestra, sometimes premium areas the box office would charge $200+ for.

How it works.

1. You enter — typically the day before the performance, from about 12:01 AM ET — through TodayTix or Broadway Direct.
2. Entries close around 9 AM ET on the day of the performance.
3. The drawing happens about 11 AM ET. Winners get an email with a short window (usually 60 minutes) to accept and pay.
4. You pick up at the box office before curtain.

Realistic odds. For the hits, odds run roughly 1–5%. For mid-tier shows, 10–25%. For long-runs that are no longer the talk of the town, sometimes 30%+. Set up a daily reminder for shows you want to see and enter every day for a couple of weeks — the math works in your favour over time.

The catch. You have to be flexible. If you need to see this show on this specific night, the lottery isn’t a plan; it’s a hope. Treat it as a way to get a cheap ticket sometime in the next two weeks.

EvenAisle lists every active digital lottery on every show page, with the entry window, price, draw time, and quantity limit. Browse all current shows to see which are running one.

4. In-person rush — the cult classic

Before digital lotteries existed, there was the in-person rush: line up at the box office at opening time on the day of the show, buy whatever cheap seats are released. A handful of shows still do this — sometimes alongside a digital lottery, sometimes instead of one.

How it works. The box office opens at 10 AM. The first N people in line (where N varies by show, but think 10–40) can buy 1–2 tickets at a rush price, typically $35–$50. Cash or card.

When it wins. When you live in the city, you’re a morning person, and you like the ritual of it. The seats are often the same quality as lottery seats — front mezz, orchestra — but you don’t have to win anything. You just have to be there.

When it loses. When you don’t live in the city, when it’s raining, when the show has a digital lottery instead (most do, these days).

Student rush is a sub-variant — some shows offer a cheap rush ticket exclusively to people with a valid student ID. Worth checking if you qualify.

5. Standing room — the last-resort hit-show option

When a show is sold out — actually sold out, every seat sold — some theatres release “standing room only” tickets the day of the show. You stand at the back of the orchestra (or sometimes the mezzanine), behind the last row, and watch the show on your feet.

When it wins. When the show is genuinely sold out and you absolutely have to see it. Hamilton in 2016, Wicked anniversary nights, hot new openings. The price is usually $40–$45 — way under what a resale ticket would cost.

When it loses. Most of the time. Standing-room only gets released when the show sells through every seat; for most shows on most nights, that doesn’t happen, and the box office sells you a normal cheap seat instead.

Realistically. SRO is your move when the entire house is sold out and rush/lottery didn’t come through. Plan a backup. And eat first — you’re standing for 2.5 hours.

6. The TKTS booth — what it actually is

The TKTS booth in Times Square (and the smaller booth at Lincoln Center) sells same-day discounted tickets to whatever Broadway and Off-Broadway shows have unsold seats they’re willing to release at 20–50% off face.

How it works. You show up in person on the day of the show, look at the digital board, pick from what’s on offer, pay 20–50% under face value plus a small per-ticket service fee. The discount is usually right around 30–40% for the better seats.

When it wins. When you’re in the city for a few days and you want to see a Broadway show, but not a specific one. The variety is the feature: there are usually 30–40 productions on the board on any given afternoon.

When it loses. When you want a specific hit show. The biggest hits (Hamilton, Wicked, MJ, Aladdin) almost never appear on the TKTS board because they don’t need to discount.

The smart pattern. Show up at around 3 PM for evening shows on a Wednesday or Thursday. The longest waits are for the booth’s opening hour (around 11 AM for matinees, 3 PM for evenings) and the immediate after-work window. Weekends are also slower; weekday matinees are the easiest.

The TDF (Theatre Development Fund) runs TKTS as a non-profit. Discounts are real and the cause is good.

7. Resale — StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats

Resale is the wild card. Sometimes it’s a premium over face, sometimes it’s a discount, and the only way to know is to look.

When it’s higher than face. Hit shows on Friday and Saturday nights. Special occasions (a star joining the cast, a closing performance). Holiday week.

When it’s lower than face. Less-popular shows on weekday nights. Last-minute (within 48 hours), as sellers panic-dump. The matinee of a long-running show that isn’t selling.

The fees. Resale platforms add fees that can be 20–35% of the listed price. Always check the all-in price before clicking buy — a “$60 ticket” can become an $82 ticket at checkout.

Authenticity. All three of the major US resale platforms (StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek) guarantee against fraudulent tickets. If something goes wrong at the door, you get a refund or a comparable replacement. Don’t buy from Craigslist or random Facebook Marketplace; do use the established platforms.

The Deal Score / Heat Map sanity check. SeatGeek’s “Deal Score” and StubHub’s heat maps grade listings against typical market price. They’re imperfect but useful as a quick second opinion.

Which to use when — the practical playbook

You have a specific date you can’t move. Official site or box office. Resale if the official site is sold out at your price point.

You’re flexible on date and want the cheapest legitimate path. Digital lottery, every day, for two weeks. Lottery via TodayTix.

You’re in NYC for a few days and want to see something. TKTS booth at 3 PM for evening shows. Weekday matinees if you can.

You want to see a specific hit show and the lottery isn’t coming through. Either commit to the box-office price, or check resale within 24 hours of the performance — sellers sometimes capitulate.

Long-running show on a weekday. Often the box office is cheapest, lottery is best value, and TKTS sometimes has it. Worth checking all three.

A few things to ignore

“Premium” pricing on resale. A ticket marked “premium” usually just means the seat is in a desirable section. It does not mean the seller has insider access. Compare to the official site’s face value for the same section before paying any premium markup.

“VIP packages” that bundle a ticket with a meet-and-greet or a souvenir. Sometimes they’re official (the producer offers them); sometimes they’re third-party packaging that costs 3× face for a $5 lanyard. Always cross-check: is the package on the show’s own site? If not, you’re paying a premium to a reseller.

“Tonight only” urgency emails from resale platforms. The platforms send these constantly; the urgency is a marketing pattern, not a real countdown. Look at the actual listing.

What EvenAisle does with all of this

Every show page on EvenAisle lists every one of these channels for that show, side by side, with typical price ranges, and our pick for the smartest buy. We rebuild these comparisons periodically against the live policies and prices.

We have a financial interest in some of those clicks — affiliate programs pay us a commission when you buy through certain partners — but we have no commercial reason to recommend a worse option over a better one, because we don’t own any of the inventory. The neutral verdict is the whole product.

Start with our shows index and pick what you want to see.