Cheap Tickets for All

The unofficial end of summer this weekend also marks the end of the free arts festivals around town. Fortunately, come September, several the city's top venues offer reduced prices on programs designed to introduce new audiences to the performing arts.

At New York City Center, the 2007 Fall for Dance Festival includes 28 dance companies that perform during the course of the 10-day festival. Each night, five companies present one piece each and the price of admission is just $10 — less than the price of two soy lattes. Last year, 14,000 tickets — half of the total allotment of festival seats — were sold in one day, according to Arlene Shuler, the president and CEO of New York City Center. Tickets go on sale September 9 at 11 a.m. and the series kicks off on September 26 (nycitycenter.org).

Fall for Dance highlights the repertoire and new choreography of its resident companies, including the Paul Taylor Dance Company and American Ballet Theatre. This year's hot ticket will be for Thursday, October 4, when Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company — founded by choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and a former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, Lourdes Lopez — takes the stage. In addition, the festival promises dance from around the world. Companies on the roster include: the Lyon Opera Ballet; a South African company, Via Katlehong Dance; the Kirov Ballet, and a program of pop, drop, and locking set to a soundtrack of North African music danced by the French hip-hop troupe Compagnie Käfig.

A little farther downtown, the weeklong DancenOw NYC Festival, now in its 13th year, is presented in partnership with the Dance Theater Workshop, a Chelseabased performance space and dance services organization. It starts next Tuesday and runs through Monday, September 10. Tickets for this seven-day sampler of "short takes" from members of the city's dance community are on advance sale for $20 — or $25 at the door (dancenownyc.org). The finale on Monday, September 10, features the Dance Omi International Dance Collective, which performs during this year's DancenOw NYC festival — for free.

While balletomanes will get their fix, two hallowed institutions of classical music, the New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, also offer affordable tickets through programs that reduce the price barrier to opera.

New York City Opera's one-night-only "Opera-for-All" evening on September 6 includes highlights from the coming season, including Puccini's "La bohème" and Mozart's "Don Giovanni," all for $25 (nycopera.com). Tickets are currently on sale.

Reduced tickets to the concerts have been "selling like hotcakes," the executive director of the New York City Opera, Jane Gullong, told The New York Sun. And that's just what she intended.

Flattening ticket sales a few years ago led Ms. Gullong and City Opera executives to address what they found were two possible causes: prohibitive prices and exceedingly long productions. By offering a program comprised of concert highlights from the repertory followed by a 90-minute opera, for a quarter of the price, Ms. Gullong found she could sell out the house. Seats have been filled to the fourth ring with an audience comprised almost entirely of newcomers (about 90% of the ticket buyers were firsttime visitors under the program, according to City Opera).

"Inevitably, there are opera lovers looking for a good price, but the audience has grown more ethnically diverse," Ms. Gullong said. The benefit has been a chance for the house to cultivate a new, often younger audience.

Just across Lincoln Center Plaza, the Metropolitan Opera House has upped the ante by offering 200 orchestra-tier tickets for $20 that usually sell for $100 . The reduced admission is made available through the house's Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman "Rush Tickets" program and applies to most performances this season (openings or special events are excluded) that take place Monday through Thursday. The 2007–08 season, which includes seven new productions, begins Monday, September 24 (metoperafamily.org). Rush tickets can be purchased at the box office beginning two hours before a performance, but are limited to two a person.

Additionally, standing room tickets at the Met are available for between $15 and $20 beginning at 10 a.m. on the day of a performance.

With prices like these, there's no excuse for missing the show.