Idea #3- Broadway Play for FREE!

      So this is the second post in one week due to some awesome unexpected tickets that popped into my life…the other day, I had planned to roll into my sister’s hometown and spend a few hours with her.  But then the tickets came into my life….

      Anyhow, I’m sure all four of my dear, loyal readers are all like: “Jumpin Jellyfish! Get to the point of the free broadway tickets woman” and okay, okay, I will oblige.  So, rewind time…I was getting ready to leave my house for my sister’s when Terri revealed that she had scored FREE tickets to the Broadway show Billy Elliot.  It went down like this:  So Terri says, “Do you want to go to the play with me?” and I said something like “WOMAN!  What kind of question IS that?  Of COURSE I’d love to go to a Broadway play but we cannot really afford to do so” and then Terri says, and I’m parapharsing heavily here: “Ditch your sister…she’ll still be your sister tomorrow and come with me to said play because, muh lady, I got free tickets from work”.  Here I did emotionally hyper backflips with excitement, told my sister that I’d see her this same day but, like, who was I to turn down free broadway tickets.

      And so, at 7p Terri and I headed downtown (Cincinnati) to the Aronoff (link for venue is here:  http://cincinnatiarts.org/aronoff    ).  After circling the block for several stressful moments like Kentucky country bumpkins that don’t know how to park in a big, scary downtown area, we parked for free at a meter on Walnut Street.  (Parking was free because it was after 6p).  Then we spent about half an hour killing time in the lobby and finally sat down in our seats about 15 minutes till showtime.  The seats were in the first tier thing (as in not on the orchestra floor) but were still really, really decent seats and sincethe tickets were free, who was I to complain? We ended up sitting next to a co-worker of hers who’s name I kept thinking was “Kojack” but it wasn’t but that IS a fun 1990′s pop culture reference.
The pictures from the actual event are non-existent because I didn’t want to hassle with being told to take my camera back to my car but here are two pictures taken after the fact:

a picture of the tickets themselves




a hilariously awful self-portrait of me holding my ticket! (It’s hard to take a self pic!) 


      I am, naturally, aware that not every is dating someone who gets free Broadway tickets but there has to be some perk to her odd, hooker-like work hours.  But still.  Yeah.  Okay.  So how does one get free tickets for various events?  That’s a toughie but I want to make my blog ideas something everyone can access.  So here are a few ideas to getting free tickets.

Concert Ticket Free/Discount Idea List
1. Make friends in ‘high places’
2. Scan/Obsessively Vist or subscribe to deal sites such as Groupon and CincySavers.com and Livingsocial.com
3.  See #1 on list
Here is the immediate breakdown:
What:  Broadway Play – Billy Elliot
Where: Cincinnati, Ohio
When: January 17, 2012
Cost Analysis: 2 Broadway tickets to Billy Elliot as a work perk: FREE, Parking: Free  (under budget” by $20!)

Idea #2- Coffeehouse Aucostic

      So  January 21st and 22nd, College Hill Coffee Company (music schedule is here: http://www.collegehillcoffeeco.com/music.htm) celebrated their 5th anniversary and hosted two of my favorite acoustic  folk musicians (Tracy Walker and Chris Collier on the 21st and 22nd respectfully).  The Tracy Walker show I had to miss because I needed to earn my $20 at work to spend on for this blog (lol/kjk) but on Saturday, I was a free woman.

      Luckily, I arrived to the show early to make sure I secured a seat at the front due to last year’s floor-sittin at this event being uncomfy!  So I settled in and asked Chris to sing her song about being her mother’s daughter.  (She obliged and I bawled like a baby!).  The rest of the set was also lovely and the sound engineer dude did a much better job than a show I was at recently for a different musician in Northern Kentucky!

      Since Terri had to work and because I decided to attend the show at the last minute, I was a singular broke girl today.  Anyway, the coffeehouse wasn’t as crowded on this anniversary as on anniversaries past so this made for the atmosphere to be expectantly calm and relaxing.  I sat down next to two delightful women that I didn’t know and had hilarious conversations.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t brave enough to ask for a picture with them for this blog but I did, indeed, get a couple pictures with Chris and Chris by herself as seen here:

Chris playing her song about her mother










Chris and I 



       I told Chris about this blog and how I was at the show alone but that my blog was called TWOBROKEGIRLS2012 and she said to tell my readers (whom number in the single digits so far but are apparently higher than ’2 readers’) this: “Tell them that you got me for cheap!” -Chris Collier.  So I suppose you could say that this was still a TWObrokegirls adventure given the quote and all

Here is the immediate breakdown:
What: Music Night at College Hill Coffee Company
Where: Cincinnati, Ohio
When: January 14, 2012
Cost Analysis: 2 sharable two-cup coffee carafe @ $2.30per carafe ($4.60 for BOTH carafe) + pint of local Mango Sorbet $5.49  + $2 optional tip for performer =  TOTAL- $12.09        (under my budget (!) by $7.91!)