Changes Afoot at TKTS Booth

Earl Wilson/The New York Times The TKTS booth in Times Square.

The popular TKTS booth in Times Square, which sells discount tickets for Broadway and Off Broadway shows, will expand its box office services in an effort to provide more options to theater-goers who line up daily for deals, executives said on Monday.

Starting this week, tickets for both matinee and evening performances will go on sale as soon as the booth opens; previously, matinee tickets were sold first, then evening tickets were sold from 3 p.m. onward. In addition, the booth will begin operating more like theater box offices by selling full-price tickets to future performances of all shows, as well as selling full-price tickets to s ame-day performances of shows that are not already offering discounts at the booth. Until now the Times Square booth has never sold full-price tickets.

The added services may yield some new revenue for the Theater Development Fund, the nonprofit that runs the TKTS booth and charges a $4 service fee for every ticket sold there. But Victoria Bailey, executive director of the fund, said on Monday that the new services were not intended to be money-makers â€"- she predicted they would only break even â€"- nor did she believe that TKTS would emerge as a direct competitor to theater box offices. She noted, for instance, that theaters can sell full-price tickets to any performance, while TKTS will not sell full-price tickets to same-day performances for shows that already sell discounts at the booth for that date. All but the biggest hit musicals usually have discounts at the booth.

Ms. Bailey said that theater owners, who make money on the ir box office sales, did not try to discourage the fund from offering these new ticketing services.

“What we're trying to do is offer more theater options for folks who are already at the booth,” she said. “Now, for instance, people who come Wednesday and Saturday mornings to buy matinee tickets might think about sticking around and seeing an evening show as well. Or people might buy a discount ticket for that day and then, while they're at it, get their full-price ticket for another show later on.

“If we were going to be a direct competitor to theaters,” she added, “we'd sell all day-of performances at full price. But that's not what TKTS does.”

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times The boot h was redesigned in 2008.

The fund will offer the new ticketing services for at least the next several months to gauge customer interest as part of a pilot program, and then assess the results. The two ticketing ideas have been under consideration for a couple of years, Ms. Bailey said, in response both to consumer requests and new technology that simplified ticket purchases at the booth. Now in its 40th year, the TKTS booth underwent a major modernization several years ago and re-opened in 2008.

Relatively recent innovations like the “play only” ticket window will continue at the Times Square booth. The new services will not be offered at the TKTS satellites at South Street Seaport and in downtown Brooklyn.

The operating hours at the booth will expand to accommodate the new services: It will now open at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. on Sunday, to sell full-price tickets only. Discount tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. on Wednes days and Saturdays; 11 a.m. on Sundays; 2 p.m. on Tuesdays; and 3 p.m. on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays.