Iconic TKTS sales space in Times Square celebrates 50 years of Broadway ticket reductions

NEW YORK — When Jay-Z and Alicia Keys filmed the video for “Empire State of Mind,” their valentine to New York City, they naturally ended up in Times Square, singing on illuminated pink glass steps. It was no mere set: It was two New York icons standing on one other.

Their stage was the highest of the TKTS sales space, which has turn into a part of town’s visible and monetary DNA and a key half in conserving Broadway going. This week that sales space is celebrating its fiftieth birthday, with town celebrating on Wednesday with songs and speeches.

“It is so intrinsically linked with the city,” says Victoria Bailey, govt director of the non-profit TDF, previously often called the Theatre Development Fund, which runs the sales space. “It has kind of always been a symbol.”

It’s a reduction ticket sales space the place same-day Broadway and off-Broadway reveals could be extra inexpensive for many who balk at costs pushing previous $300 a seat for some musicals. About 30% of the individuals who line up are first-time Broadway theatergoers.

Thousands of tickets are offered on the sales space day by day as the varied industrial theater field places of work calculate what number of full-price tickets they will promote after which ship the remainder to TKTS. The theater will get all of the ticket income and TDF will get a $7 service charge per ticket, which helps fund its schooling, neighborhood and outreach packages.

Some 68.6 million tickets have been offered from the sales space throughout its 50 years, with greater than $2.6 billion going again to the reveals. Despite the rise of on-line rivals and apps hawking discounted theater tickets, lining up on the sales space is as elementary as cooing over the Statue of Liberty or taking a photograph with a close-by costumed Elmo.

PHOTOS: TKTS sales space in Times Square celebrates 50 years of Broadway ticket reductions

The present glass-enclosed sales space opened in 2008, a part of an $18 million renovation venture that evokes a Greek amphitheater or Rome’s well-known Spanish steps, the place guests can sit on the 27 steps and watch the road scene. Jay-Z and Keys might have had the steps to themselves of their video, however it’s ordinarily a really crowded place.

“There’s so many people that keep coming back even after the pandemic and will stand on that line to come and see shows. And they thank us. That’s something that didn’t happen as often before. But it happens more now, and I love it,” says Ann Ramirez, a TKTS supervisor.

TDF created satellite tv for pc TKTS cubicles in Brooklyn, on the World Trade Center and in Lincoln Center, in addition to helped develop cubicles in Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, London and Sydney.

The first sales space was a brief experiment that caught in Times Square. It opened for enterprise on June 25, 1973, utilizing an deserted trailer donated by the Parks division with holes punched in it for ticket home windows. 

The neighborhood was completely different then — seedy and harmful.

“Broadway was falling apart then,” says Robert Mayers, who with enterprise companion John Schiff designed the sales space and the brand. “They wanted to do an experiment because the area was in disrepair.”

Mayers and Schiff got simply $5,000 for the capital price range, and so they rented scaffolding to go across the sales space. They wove a translucent plastic material with the enduring emblem among the many bars and clamped spotlights on the body.

“It’s a very theatrical kind of vocabulary,” says Mayers. “We looked at it as a giant kite. It was supposed to be light hearted, related to the theater and make a visual statement in a very busy place.”

They thought it could wait for a yr or two, at greatest. Instead, it gained design awards and lasted a long time. Their affect could be seen within the abbreviated, vowel-less apps and firm titles of at the moment — Flickr to Unbxd and DNCE.

“I noticed whenever you see movies of the ‘70s or ‘80s and they’re in New York, there’s always a scene in Times Square or Duffy Square where the camera goes by and you see the TKTS booth. I always get a kick out of that,” says Mayers.

If the sales space was an try and stabilize the neighborhood, it’s nonetheless an indication that town is open for enterprise — necessary steps after occasions like 9/11, Superstorm Sandy and the coronavirus pandemic.

“You talk to ushers, you talk to wardrobe people, you talk to the people backstage and they talk about the booth as the thing that has over the years kept them employed,” mentioned Bailey, who went to there for tickets in faculty and later despatched tickets to the sales space as a Broadway normal supervisor.

These days, guests make their picks from a listing of reveals on regularly updating digital boards. TDF additionally has a free telephone app that lists its choices in actual time.

Staffers are available to assist in pink jackets or T-shirts with the TKTS emblem and the printed slogan “Got questions?” They’re theater followers, having seen all of the reveals on provide and conscious of one of the best and worst seats within the metropolis’s numerous theaters. Most patrons get by way of the road in lower than 45 minutes, longer on holidays.

The recommendation is to be versatile — have selected two or three potential reveals by the point you get to the window. Bailey notices that folks in line typically assist one another out with suggestions and swap information on reveals.

Tickets to mega-hits like “Hamilton” and “Wicked” sometimes gained’t seem on the sales space since they don’t want to supply reductions. New reveals typically do till they turn into a scorching ticket, like after a Tony Award win or favorable opinions. But, finally, most reveals find yourself listed on the sales space.

“There comes a point in the evolution of a show when they need help,” says Bailey, who earned a Tony this yr for her work serving to theater. “Shows like ‘A Chorus Line,’ ‘The Wiz,’ ‘Chicago,’ ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ those shows ran extra years because of the booth.”

On a current day, the sales space had 50% reductions for “Camelot,” “A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond Musical,” “Good Night, Oscar,” “Grey House,” “New York, New York,” “Once Upon a One More Time,” “Hadestown” and “Chicago.” Tickets for “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” with Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan had been as little as $50.

Unlike different paid ticket sellers wandering round Times Square pushing one explicit musical or play, TKTS representatives aren’t allowed to advocate a single present however as an alternative provide a variety of choices applicable to the customer — household pleasant, dramatic, mild, scary.

Once on the window, ticket sellers rapidly scan a blueprint of the theater for accessible seats and provide guests choices, like {couples} can sit aside with an unobstructed view or sit along with a “partial view” and danger lacking one thing onstage.

In addition to catching reveals herself, Ramirez loves seeing her regulars and studying what they’ve appreciated and what they haven’t.