London’s only official half-price theatre ticket booth is celebrating its 30^th birthday on 10 Aug. Selling almost 11 million tickets to 1,200 shows, be the first in the queue on the 10^th and receive free tickets to any of your favourite shows.

The booth opens at 10am and the first 30 people will receive one free ticket per person; but don’t despair if you’re too late, look out for the tkts scratchcards being handed out around Leicester Square on 10th and 11th Aug to win a number of theatre-related prizes.

Established in 1980 by the Society of London Theatre (SOLT), tkts can claim to sell one in 39 West End tickets and all profits have contributed substantially to the London theatre industry.

The original booth was a small, green and yellow striped wooden hut which stood on the west side of Leicester Square. After closing for a short period it was reopened in 1992 by the Mayor of Westminster. Its nickname ‘tkts’ was coined in 2001 to echo the Broadway equivalent in New York.

A trip to London is not complete without a visit to the theatre and tkts is a great place to find discount tickets, sometimes at as much as 50 per cent off. It is entirely flexible too, meaning you can either get tickets a week in advance or on the day. Visit www.tkts.co.uk for more information and to find out what’s on sale today. Please note however that you have to buy tickets in person – there are no online or telephone sales.

Get queueing!

By Gabriella Patterson