College student Brianna Liang, 21, tried to keep her teeth from chattering in the 30-degree weather as she waited outside the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. She was one of approximately fifty people who were hoping to win discounted tickets via lottery to that evening’s performance of Book of Mormon.
“As someone who couldn’t afford to buy tickets in general if there weren’t any rush or lottery policies, I think it’s good because it gives people the opportunity to actively seek out shows,” said Liang. “Now there’s a wider range of people who can come.”
Although policies vary between shows, all lotteries give people who cannot afford the big price tag on seats the chance to experience a Broadway theater performance. The lotteries make theater more accessible to a more diverse audience.
Book of Mormon offers $32 tickets to in-person lottery winners. A premium seat costs as much as $477.
Winning a ticket is just as simple as showing up to the theatre with a little luck. Theatergoers typically arrive outside the venue two hours before curtain. After writing their names on slips, they wait for a select few to be called. Winners claim one or two tickets at a steep discount.
Lotteries received a recent resurgence in popularity with the arrival of hit musical Hamilton on Broadway. As many as 600 eager fans would gather outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre to participate in a “Ham4Ham,” named because winners get the chance to see Hamilton for the price of “a Hamilton.” Not only did this lottery give an elusive ticket to a perpetually sold-out show, but also, the tickets were priced at a tremendous discount compared to the $849 cost of a premium orchestra seat.
According to Debra Caplan, an assistant theater professor at Baruch College, the sharp increase in ticket prices over time led to a higher demand for cheaper alternatives.
“If you look at Broadway ticket prices in the ‘70s, adjusted for inflation, and Broadway ticket prices today, there’s a really dramatic difference,” said Caplan. “There didn’t used to be a need for lotteries in the same way that there is now. If you were young and not super wealthy, your ticket price wasn’t going to be over a hundred dollars just for one seat.”
The Broadway League listed the average ticket price for 2016 to be $102.54, a large increase over the 1997 price of $47.97.
Composer and original lead actor Lin-Manuel Miranda generated excitement for the Hamilton lotteries by creating small performances outside the theatre for applicants. Members of the Hamilton cast as well as those from neighboring Broadway venues would sing, rap, and dance. The spontaneous “shows” would circulate the internet, launching Hamilton fame into the mainstream as a prime example of lotteries generating intrigue.
Fans return time and time again for a chance to see Hamilton.
“I’ve tried 30 times, and that’s an accurate number because I’ve actually counted. I’ve tried since off-Broadway! Most of them were in person, and when the digital lotteries started, I did that as well,” said Liang.
On January 5, 2016, Hamilton moved its lottery online in a measure of public safety. Since then, digital lotteries have become increasingly more popular.
College student and aspiring actress Zeynep Akca, 21, explained the digital lottery system in its simplest form: “You go online, you click the enter button, you enter your information. When the lottery closes, you get an email. It usually says, ‘Try again.’”
“I do this almost everyday,” said Zeynep Akca, 21, of applying to the Hamilton lottery online. “Because if I don’t enter, there’s no chance of me winning. If I do, there’s a slight chance of me winning, right?”
Akca found the digital lotteries to be the most convenient and fair.
“I prefer doing them online just because I don’t have a lot of time to go to the in-person lotteries,” she said. “It removes the factor of a person drawing names, and weirdly, it feels better if an algorithm is doing it.”
According to Caplan, the internet made it easier to access information and apply to lotteries.
“The internet has become sort of a depositor for people to learn about what exactly you need to do to get in the lottery. Pre-internet, it wouldn’t be quite so easy to get that information to people unless they physically showed up or called the theatre,” Caplan said.
Where live lotteries flourish is the way they foster a sense of community between those in line.
Akca described a time she was for fortunate enough to have both won tickets as well as make a connection with other fans that applied.
“During the last Wicked lottery I went to, there was a very nice lady in line with me. And she was visiting with their family. We just bonded over liking theater and her son being 26 and seeing Wicked just like he did ten years before that on his 16th birthday,” Akca said. The family was particularly lucky as several members of the group managed to have their names drawn. “The odds were in our favor, basically.”
While lotteries primarily exist to make theater more accessible, participating shows use the system as a clever way of drawing audiences to otherwise unappealing seats. Many discounted tickets are for seats with partial or obscured view of the stage. Others are for the seats very close to the stage that leaves spectators craning their necks in order to see the action.
Nevertheless, Liang felt that the seats are worth it.
“They were never so bad that they took away from the experience,” she said of sightlines from past lottery seats. “I’ve never gone to a show and had a bad time. In all honesty, a foot in the theatre is good enough for me.”
The timing of lotteries was not made without thought. The close proximity to show time ensures that the discounted seats offered are ones that might have otherwise gone unsold.
“There’s sometimes a kind of economic calculus at work,” explained Caplan. “If you have a show that maybe isn’t doing so well, you can offer more lottery tickets so that people are still coming, filling the seats, and hopefully spreading the show through word of mouth.”
While these lotteries give people who cannot afford the hefty price of seats the opportunity to see a Broadway show, those who enter are still playing a game of chance.
Liang, unfortunately, waited in the cold weather without success. After losing the lottery, she didn’t feel discouraged.
“I’m going to try again tomorrow, actually,” Liang said.