Without a doubt, the questions I'm asked most frequently are: how do you manage to go to the theatre so often and how do you manage to get the tickets so cheap? The truth is...a lot of researching! From day tickets, to lotteries, to saving up for vouchers - there's a lot you can do to make visiting the theatre more accessible financially.

In the past few months, I've been to the theatre many times, and most of the visits have cost less than £25 a ticket. I will say that living within an hour of London helps massively, as some of the options are very last minute, and require some kind of spontaneity. 

So here's a round up of how I keep theatre visit costs as low as possible:

Download Today Tix
Without a doubt, Today Tix is the best app to download for all your theatre needs. It's worth mentioning that their standard pricing of seats doesn't differ much from booking direct. However, they're always running sales on a variety of shows - so make sure you have notifications turned on. My first visit to & Juliet this year was £15 for central seats in the Royal Circle and I have Mary Poppins booked next week in a similar place, for the same price! 

Rush Tickets
Whilst we're talking about Today Tix, if you live near London or fancy seeing a show last minute - rush tickets are incredible! Every day at 10am, Today Tix offers a limited amount of £25 rush tickets for a huge selection of shows. From Dear Evan Hansen, Six, Come From Away, Dirty Dancing, & Juliet - you'll be spoilt for choice. Not only are the prices ridiculously cheap, but they're usually incredible seats!

Ticket Lotteries
Today Tix offer lotteries on a selection of the most popular West End shows, making them far more accessible. Hamilton has the front row reserved of every performance for their £10 lottery. You can enter the lottery every Friday, and the winners are announced the following Thursday. Cabaret, Cinderella, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Wicked have a similar system in place (prices vary).

Sit Front Row
This may seem a strange one - but front row is always cheaper! The seats are usually marked as "restricted" because the stage is usually quite high. But I'm 5ft 3" and I've never struggled to see a show from front row. For example, front row at Bonnie and Clyde is £22.50, whereas a few rows back is £55.50...which is a huge difference.

Book Well in Advance
The cheapest tickets are naturally, always the quickest to go. So if you are looking to book front row seats, or seats that are more reasonably priced - book well in advance. You may be waiting slightly longer to see the show, but if keeping the cost down is important to you, it's a great idea.

See a Show in Preview Week
When a show first opens, it will have a week or so of preview performances. This is where the creative team and cast may make slight changes and look for ways to perfect the show before the "official" opening night. Preview weeks are offered at a discounted rate, and you'll also have the added bonus of being one of the first to see the show!

Day Tickets
Day tickets are usually released at the theatre of most shows at 10am every show performing day. Just rock up to the box office the morning of, and there will usually be great seats up for grabs. Phantom of the Opera is ahead of the curve and offer £30 day tickets online. You can access these tickets here from 10am each day.

Disney Day Seats
At the start of each week (Monday at 12pm), Disney release a selection of £25 tickets for the week ahead. The shows offered are The Lion King and Frozen. While it's still pretty spontaneous, there's a bit more flexibility with this one if you have further to travel. You can find theses tickets here.

Book Tickets Before the Cast is Announced
Tickets always seem to cheaper before they make any cast announcements. So if you know there's a show you're particularly interested in, and you don't mind who the cast are - book in advance! 

Check Returns Daily
I was desperate to book the final show before cast change at & Juliet and there weren't any seats in my usual spot. However, I checked back daily and was lucky enough to find reasonably priced tickets in the spot I love. Returns happen way more often than you may think - especially since the pandemic.

Seatplan
Seatplan offer a rewards scheme whereby if you take a view from your seat and upload it to their website, they reward you with points, which can then be exchanged for theatre vouchers. You get 50 points for most shows, 100 points for newer shows, and an extra 20 points if you upload a photo of your ticket. The best part is, you can upload any view from a seat within the last two years. I uploaded all of mine within the past few months, and got £20 of vouchers! You can find their rewards scheme here.

Stagedoor App
If you download the Stagedoor app and open a loyalty card with them (it's free), you'll get £10 off your first theatre booking with them. And the more shows you book, the more rewards you unlock for future visits. 

And that's all my tips for finding theatre tickets as cheap as possible. Let me know if any of these tips and tricks work for you.