Big Smoke Boredom

London’s West End offers some of the best, original and most popular musicals in the world. From the longest standing musical of all time (Les Misérables) to a classic film adaptation (Dirty Dancing), from a musical inspired by Queen (We Will Rock You) to a musical inspired by Abba (Mamma Mia), the West End literally has a show on offer to suit every taste and  generation.

With the increasing participation of celebrity personalities in London shows, including Blue’s Duncan James in Legally Blonde and Rowan Atkinson in Oliver!, contemporary Musical performances have a lot more to offer compared to traditional musical theatre. Additionally, thanks to the encouragement of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s reality TV shows to find the leading roles for top West End shows, including Joseph, the Sound Of Music and his current search for Dorothy and Toto, Wizard of Oz tickets and tickets for other musicals in London’s West End have become increasingly popular.

A trip to the West End can be a night of glamour and romance; one thing a theatre trip isn’t (and is commonly mistaken for!) is expensive. A ticket to London’s top West End shows can range from under £20 to a much more pricey £80. However, with a bit of organisation and compromise you can save money on the show you want to see and get more than the ticket you paid for. Listed below are 3 tips to avoid paying the top end prices.

1. On-line retailers such as lastminute.com and uktickets.co.uk are a great resource for cheap London theatre tickets. Going with one of the leading online travel and leisure retailers, it’s a good start to finding cheap tickets to the theatre in the West End. Look out for tickets that include a pre-theatre supper at participating restaurants!

2. Are you under 26? The Arts Council England are offering young people FREE (yes free!) tickets to theatres all over London. Launched in 2009, A Night Less Ordinary is a scheme that offers thousands of free theatre tickets to anyone under 26 for all sorts of theatre events including comedy, tragedies, musical theatre, dance, modern mime, plays, circus and much more. Check out http://www.anightlessordinary.org.uk to check what is on at your local participating theatre.

3. Theatre ticket booths are located on every corner in London’s Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Covent Garden. Very often, the best seats in the theatre are reserved for these ticket booths – if seats are still available on the day (very often the case) the tickets are sold at a substantially discounted rate! If you are happy to risk not seeing your first choice of show, then ‘just turning up’ on the day can be the cheapest way if you want a (near) front row seat.

I hope these help, if you have any other ideas on how to get cheap theatre tickets in London then share the wealth 🙂