The price of tickets for music, film or theatre has rocketed in recent years. A couple can easily spend £100 seeing a play and that's without the cost of dinner. Music is no different, and even small venues are charging over £20 a head. Yet all these events are chasing a similar audience and there simply aren't enough people to fill every venue. Now, for a performer, there's nothing worse than playing to an empty theatre or concert hall, so management have now taken steps to remedy this. It's a well kept secret that tickets are given out for free at the last minute. And it’s particularly galling if the seat has cost £60, but the one adjacent has gone for almost nothing.
How to Find Free Events in London
Time Out and free newspapers, like Metro and the Evening Standard, list some free events, but they’re not at all comprehensive. Many events are only advertised through the relevant organization’s website so let the mouse do the walking and browse their sites. Fortunately, many also allow sign-up to an email list so they can send updates about what’s coming up.
Many Museums Offer Free Talks and Films
Entry to major museums in London is free and is one of the best bargains in town. But they also stage free events. Good bets are the British Museum, the National Gallery, Courtauld Institute, Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and the British Library. It’s mainly lectures and films but sometimes there’s music.
London’s Churches Host Lunchtime Concerts
This is a real gold mine. Free lunchtime concerts are everywhere, mainly in the City but also in churches like Westminster Abbey, St Martin in the Fields and St James Piccadilly. Details of City of London church concerts can be found here.
Foreign Embassies are Home to Music and Poetry Recitals
Foreign embassies regularly stage free recitals of music, poetry or both, featuring artists from their countries. The Italian Embassy is particularly good at this and events are held in beautiful surroundings of their building in Belgravia. Other countries who put on gigs inside their embassies include Romania, Norway and Brazil and often free refreshments are an added bonus.
London Colleges Provide Venues for Students to Play
Music students are aspiring performers so many colleges provide them with an outlet. The Royal College of Music, Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama have regular performances by tutors and students alike, and often host guest musicians. SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies, has a world music programme and its Jewish Music Institute also stages music workshops.
SeeFilmFirst Hands Out Free Tickets to Movies and Concerts
SeeFilmFirst is dedicated to giving away tickets. Registration is required on their website but they'll then email codes for free movie previews and also concert performances. Speed is of the essence, but everything is completely free.
Better Than the Half-Price Ticket Booth in Leicester Square
The half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square, where theatres discount the seats they can’t sell on the day of the performance, is well known. It’s not such a great deal, however, since the tickets are usually the most expensive and they add a service charge of £2.50 for each one sold.
But, there’s another avenue open to the dedicated freebie grabber and that’s membership of the "Giveaway Networks". It’s an actor’s or musician’s nightmare to perform to an empty house and theatre managements and concert promoters must pack their venues. At the last minute, they offload their unsold tickets to these "Giveaway Groups", which are often no more than a network of friends. They’re highly secret and access is by invitation only.
Once accepted, they send out daily email updates and it's just a matter of responding with the number of tickets required. Usually there's a small fee to cover administration but it's a real bargain. And it's not just the turkeys that nobody wants to see. In the last year there’ve been tickets for Beckett, Stoppard, and Shakespeare at places like the Old Vic, Regents Park Open Air Theatre and the Coliseum. How to subscribe? Well that's a closely guarded secret...
Freebie Addicts Enter a Brave New Cultural World
The problem with getting everything for free is that it becomes much harder to pay full price. A dedicated freebie addict will miss out on some great performances just because it costs money. But it does open up a whole new cultural world. Plays, thought too difficult to stomach, suddenly become enthrallling and music, written off as a dreadful din, gets new life when experienced live. Gone are those nights in front of the TV trying to save money. Suddenly, there's the excitement of being out on the town, in one of the most vibrant capital cities in the world, sampling cultural delights beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
Rupert Parker - Rupert Parker is journalist, photographer, cameraman and TV Producer. He specializes in factual programming and has worked for the BBC, ...
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