TodayTix vs Theatre Tokens vs official site: where to actually buy theatre tickets

If you've ever stared at three tabs and wondered which one to actually buy from, this is for you.

What each one actually is

TodayTix is an app and website that sells theatre tickets. For a lot of West End shows, they're the official partner running the lottery and rush programmes. They also sell normal tickets at the venue's standard price plus a booking fee.

Theatre Tokens is a gift-card scheme. Not a ticket seller. You buy tokens, you redeem them at any participating UK theatre. They're effectively store credit that works across 260+ venues.

The official venue site is exactly what it sounds like. The Royal Court website, the National Theatre site, ATG's ticket site for ATG-owned venues, Delfont Mackintosh's site for theirs.

When to use which

Use TodayTix for:

• Any official lottery (Hamilton, Wicked, etc — they're run via TodayTix)
• Daily rush tickets (heavily discounted, app-only release at 10am)
• Browsing what's on if you don't know what you want yet
• Last-minute same-day options

Use Theatre Tokens for:

• When you can buy them at a discount via a workplace perks scheme
• Gifts that aren't locked to one show
• Slow accumulation as a savings mechanism

Use the official venue site for:

• Picking specific seats
• Avoiding booking fees that are sometimes higher on TodayTix
• Booking previews and PWYC nights (often only available via the venue)
• Day seats (usually only via the venue)

The booking fee thing

This is where it gets annoying. TodayTix charges a booking fee. The venue charges a booking fee. Sometimes TodayTix is cheaper, sometimes the venue is, sometimes they're identical. There's no universal rule.

What I do is open both for the same show, same date, same price band, and pick whichever total is lower. It takes 90 seconds and saves £3-£8 about half the time.

The Theatre Tokens hack

If your employer participates in a benefits scheme that includes Theatre Tokens — and a lot of big employers do, so it's worth checking — you can sometimes buy them at 5-15% off face value. That makes them a real discount route, not just a payment method.

Same goes for some bank reward schemes and some loyalty programmes. The token itself isn't a discount; the way you bought it might be.

If you don't have access to discounted Theatre Tokens, they're not particularly useful as a money-saving tool. They're useful as a gift, and that's about it.

The "official partner" framing

This matters for trust. TodayTix has formal arrangements with most West End producers, which is why they can run the lotteries. The producers want lotteries — it builds buzz, fills hard-to-sell seats, and pulls in younger audiences. So TodayTix tickets are real, the seats they advertise are the seats you get, and the lottery process isn't rigged in any of the ways people speculate online.

The third-party resale sites are a different category and I'm not going to recommend any of them. Stick to TodayTix, the venue site, or Theatre Tokens. You'll pay a fair price, the tickets will be real, and you won't have to ring a customer service line in panic the night of.

What I actually do

For a show I'm not desperate to see: TodayTix lottery, every day, until I win or the run ends.

For a show I am desperate to see and want to guarantee: official venue site, normal price, booking fee swallowed.

For a show with a hot run that has rush tickets: TodayTix at 10am, 90 seconds of refresh, sometimes you get lucky.

That's genuinely it. The list of "discount sites" online isn't a list — it's a forest of affiliate spam. The three above plus the venue's own preview programme are the real options.

If you want to see what's playing this week and pick which deal-route to chase, London events on Rifio lists the productions alongside everything else.