Your 2012 Fall for Dance Ticket–Purchasing Survival Guide

August 28, 2012

Tickets for the ninth annual, ever-popular, awesomely cheap Fall for Dance Festival go on sale Sunday, September 9—exactly 11 days from today, so mark your calendars now. And although the tickets are officially released to the public at 11 AM, don’t let that number fool you. A huge line forms well in advance and tickets sell out at the speed of petite allegro. There’s the online purchasing option, of course, but the website immediately transports you to a virtual waiting room, and the surcharge is outrageous—it’s been as high as 60 percent the price of a ticket in past years. (And this year’s single-ticket price is already up from last year’s: $15 instead of $10.)

 

Carla Körbes and Seth Orza of Pacific Northwest Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon’s
Carousel (A Dance), which the company performs at FFD Oct. 4–6. Photo © Angela Sterling, Courtesy FFD.

 

But the bang for your buck simply can’t be beat. Over the course of 12 performances, there are 5 different programs, with a total of 20 companies and/or artists represented. The DanceTalk series returns, which gives audiences a chance to sit in on a panel discussion, pre-performance. The lobby of City Center will be the scene of this year’s Lounge FFD, where ticket holders will get the chance to rub elbows with FFD’s performers amidst cocktails and snacks, pre- and post-show. (“Oh yes hellooooooo, BalletBoyz—may I buy you a drink?”)

 

Shantala Shivalingappa performs at FFD Oct. 4–6. Photo by C.P. Satyajit, Courtesy FFD.

 

My dancer cohorts and I will probably end up coercing one unluckily available friend to wait in line for us and purchase all of our tickets in bulk. This has been our protocol for the last couple of years, and it seems to work rather well: We each write down how many tickets we’d like, what nights we’d like to attend, and what our top program choices are. (It’s always good to have a Plan B, in case your favorite program sells out before you reach the box office proper.) There always ends up being at least a bit of overlap on final ticket results, so no one ends up attending alone. Coffee and tasty treats delivered to The Chosen One stuck waiting in line are also a good and mollifying idea.

Check out the website for the complete listing of each program, as well as a neat behind-the-scenes video for the FFD poster shoot at the Lois Greenfield Photo Studio. —Rachel Rizzuto