Going to the theatre, especially in London, can be an expensive hobby, but if you have the know-how, you can get to see top plays and musicals for very affordable prices. Ranging from venues giving away tickets to fill seats, last-minute discounts, membership deals, and a lot of offers for younger people, theatres can offer a fairly cheap night out.

Regular Offers

Two of London’s main theatre ticket sellers routinely have special offers on selected shows. The offers range from modest, such as no booking fees, up to pretty good, such as better than half price on seats.

Range of Offers

The range of offers is usually limited to the big headline shows, and they change quite regularly, so best to bookmark this page and check the two links below when you want to buy some Cheap London theatre tickets. London Theatre Direct tends to have fewer deals, but they often have better exclusive prices. Theatre Tickets Direct generally has more offers to choose from, but check London Theatre Direct first, as the prices tend to be better there.

Seat Filler Tickets

The dark secret of the theatre world is that theatres often give away free seats to people to fill empty spaces so that the theatre feels full. This is done for a number of reasons, from comedies needing louder laughs from the audience to struggling plays wanting to fill the seats so the show appears more popular than it is this affects word of mouth recommendations and the like.

Final Things to Know

Because they’re free, if you are given a seat-filler ticket, you’re expected to stay for the full performance, no sneaking out if you get bored or are stuck in a bad seating position, and failure to turn up to a free show can see you being banned from getting any more free tickets. There’s a very strict list of rules that have to be followed, as you’ll be sitting in a free seat, likely surrounded by people who paid full price and won’t appreciate you blabbing about your freebie.