Wanting to see SNL? Well it's not as easy as it seems; you have four options:
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Win the lottery
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Buy the tickets from a trust worthy source
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Know someone in the production
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Line up the morning of and hope someone cancels
Lets start with option number 1; win the lottery.
Once a year, SNL opens up a general application for anyone that wants to see the show. If you are wanting to be entered into the lottery you need to:
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email why you want to be part of the audience to snltickets@nbcuni.com
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this must be sent only during the lottery window as they will ignore early and late submissions
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NOTE: 2021-2022 lottery runs from 12:00 a.m. ET on August 31, 2021 to 11:59 p.m. ET on August 31, 2021
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must be at least 16 years old
You only get one chance to submit this email as they will only accept one email per person so make so you make your reason a good one!
If you are picked for the lottery then they will contact you with a random date and time. You do not get to choose and if you decline the offer, your name is removed from the lottery for that year so you will have to wait to reapply next year.
Option #2 - buy tickets
Some people have access to tickets that production members / producers don't want so they are able to resell them to the public for a large profit. Tickets seem to go for U$ 1500 - 3000 / person depending on who is hosting and considering tickets are free, this is quite the mark up!
Option #3 - know someone
Like most things in life, it is all about who you know. The staff, producers, and performers all have access to tickets and they can give these to friends and family so if you have a chance to make friendly with someone in the show do it.
Option #4 - line up
The morning of (about 6am) people will start lining up at Rockefeller Centre to try to score these coveted tickets. There are two types of tickets you can get at this time - practice and show. If people from the lottery also cancel, these tickets become available as well and are given out to the first few people in line (there is never a lot so they go fast). Besides the actual recorded show, there is also the dry run through where they practice skits and jokes on random people before the show that night. This allows them to remove / tweak jokes and skits so you might see things that won't make it to air. These tickets are available if you line up early enough. I've heard that with the lottery they sometimes offer these tickets out once they've run out of actual show tickets so if you apply and get selected, let me know if this is true.
