10 hacks to score cheap theatre tickets in London – 2022 edition

1. National Theatre Rush Tickets: Friday Rush for £10 a ticket

That’s a less-known way to score a deal for the Southbank shows. National Theatre Friday Rush opens every Friday at 1 PM. If you’re lucky, you can book a ticket for a show for any day in the week following the raffle. I recommend creating an account earlier just so you’re ready and can log in straight away. You can check which tickets will be offered on a specific Friday, and get ready. More details are available on the website!

2. Standing tickets for Hamilton for £12.50

As reported on Instagram and Tripadvisor here, if you pop by the Box Office of Victoria Palace Theatre, you may be able to get a standing ticket in the Grand Circle for a crazy price of £12.50. You can only buy max. 2 tickets per person and they go on sale on the morning of each show. They’re available only in person at the box office.

Standing wasn’t too difficult, as we could lean on the seats in front of us, and there were very few occasions where the actors were not fully visible, and we could hear everything even at the back of the theatre

Tripadvisor Reviewer

3. Great deal on turning Tesco points into TodayTix deals

This was only brought to my attention recently by the awesome Rachel from RachelReviewed. And it’s such a gem! If you collect Tesco points, they gain so much value when transferred to redeem a ticket on Today Tix. Every £0.50 in Tesco points vouchers can be turned into £1.50 to use with TodayTix Theatre Tickets. Read more here.

4. Stagedoor App loyalty program

If you know you will be buying many West End tickets soon – use either TodayTix rush tickets or Stagedoor App (on Play Store and App Store). When you sign up on Stagedoor App you get a £10 voucher to use on any West End show (yay!), and the more you buy through your account, the more discounts you get. After a couple of bookings, I received a whooping £30 voucher to use on Stagedoor App – it was definitely worth sticking to this one app!

5. Facebook groups – where people who can no longer go sell or give away tickets

Ok, this one is a little tricky. There are tonnes of places on Facebook where people who can’t make it for a show are keen to sell their tickets cheaper. However, since it’s an unregulated market, even though most cases are legit, there may be some scammers too. So I generally recommend double checking a profile of a person who offers the tickets first, using the “search in group” option to find any blacklisted people from the past etc. Getting tickets this way sure gets you awesome discounts but has quite a lot of risk too.

Some of the groups with reputable members who also sell tickets:

Spare Tickets UK

Theatre Nerds Backstage

The Musical Theatre Appreciation Society

6. Reviewing on Seatplan = rewards

If you frequent West End theatres, you must have used Seatplan one way or another in the past. The platform has seatplans of every major London theatre – and real reviews of seats, with photos, included. The website relies on users submitting their seat reviews, so to encourage that, they introduced a reward scheme. All you have to do when you visit a theatre is to note down your seat number, take a pic of the view from the seat and score it on the website. And voila!

Every seat view photo earns 50 points and on new shows, the first 200 photos earn 100 points each. So it’s possible to earn a £10 voucher for just 8 photos! Visit Seatplan to start reviewing here.

7. Pay as you can – in the Vaults Theatre on Wednesdays and Sundays

For every show, starting in Autumn 2022 and onwards, we will offer Pay What You Can tickets!

 This will apply to Wednesday and Sunday performances for all shows. When purchasing a ticket, for a Wednesday or Sunday, you’ll be offered a variety of prices to pick from; with each ticket, no matter the price, acting as a General Admission ticket.

 Pay What You Can Tickets are our way of supporting audience members experiencing financial hardship. We expect these tickets to be purchased at an honest and fair price, to reflect your financial position. Sadly if this offer is abused we will not be able to continue to offer this to those who benefit from it. 

 These tickets are not to be used for bulk orders or parties larger than 6 people. 

Valid ID and proof of card purchase will be required upon entry. 

The Vaults Theatre

8. Disney Magical Mondays

Here’s a way to score a good deal on shows like “The Lion King”, “Frozen” and “Beauty and the Beast”.

Magical Mondays offer the chance to purchase seats for £25. Every Monday at noon, a number of tickets for that week’s performances will be available for £25, through the DisneyTickets website. All you need is an account on Disney! These tend to send pretty fast so better set up an alarm not to miss out.

9. £10 TikTok tickets for Matilda

Here’s a way to score a cheap ticket to see “Matilda” if you’re under 25 years old.

Sixteen tickets are reserved for every performance available on the day of performance in person from 10am at the Cambridge Theatre Box Office.

This offer is for young people aged 16 to 25 who must make the booking themselves. Maximum of one ticket per person and proof of age ID will be required. 

Please note that tickets cannot be exchanged or refunded for Matilda The Musical. Discounts are subject to availability, at the discretion of the Box Office and cannot be booked in conjunction with any other discount or offer. You will be required to show proof of eligibility on collection of your tickets. 

Royal Shakespeare Company

10. Check your local theatre for discounts

If you are a local, you get a better price in multiple venues in your borough or area – all you need is a proof of address, like a bill with your name on it.

Join our free local membership scheme Bush Local for £2.50 off full price tickets. You’ll also get a 10% discount at our Library Bar.

Bush Theatre

£15 Young Royalty (for 17-25 year olds) and Local Royalty (for those who live in local East London postcodes) tickets are available for some productions, click here to find out more about our Royalty Scheme. Concessions are subject to availability, please see individual show pages for more information. Please note that proof of age (for Under 17 and Young Royalty tickets) or proof of address (for Local Royalty tickets) may be checked at the venue. 

Stratford East Theatre