Cheap Seats

We attend some sort of theatre production at least once a week. Sometimes it is as many as four times a week. That’s not counting when we are on vacation such as when we saw 11 shows in 8 days in NYC this last July or when we were in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival a year ago and saw 25 performances in 7 days.

Want to know the secret for seeing and affording all these local shows? Discount tickets from a marvelous on-line service. We are members of Goldstar Events. It is free to register. You can buy the tickets in advance. This is not a “day of performance discount” like TKTS or other stand in line and see what is left when you get to the box office counter. Instead Goldstar Events sends us a weekly email of performances available for half price in our area. We have been using the service for several years and love it. Even the service fee is a bargain. It is only a couple of bucks unlike Ticketmaster which charges ridiculous amounts of money.

I believe the company started on the West Coast. In the San Francisco and San Jose area they have dozens and dozens of performances available at any one time. Plays, musicals, concerts, dance, sporting events, lectures and spas are all listed. I have seen listings for Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas. They also offer events in Chicago, DC Metro and have just added New York and Boston.

Another good source of discount tickets in the Silicon Valley is Artsopolis. Run by the Arts Council of Silicon Valley, it also offers half price tickets available with an e-mail registration. Their site also says that the Artsopolis network is also available in Pheonix, Houston, Denver, South Bend and Grand Forks.