Paying for the Urb: FAQs
How do I buy tickets for a performance?
The Urbane Opera Company is pleased that you want to attend a performance. Accordingly, we’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for you to purchase tickets. You can purchase tickets directly from this website; click here to view a calendar of the performance season. Click here for the mailing address of our ticket service. Click here for the address of our box office. To order by phone, click here for the number to call. Click here for our fax number. To order tickets by email, click here for a link to a contact form, where you can provide your mailing address; we will send you a postcard with our email address on it. If you do not receive a postcard in 4-6 business days, please call our postcard service office. Click here for the phone number.
Is there a subscription service?
Of course! In fact, the Urb strenuously encourages the advance purchase of tickets for the full series of shows in a season, because no one in the history of opera subscriptions has ever attended more than a quarter of the performances paid for. And our refund policy (see below) is just plain opprobrious.
Are there any discount tickets?
This is the opera, not a monster truck rally.
That said, there are several, strictly prescribed ways to obtain performance tickets at less-than-full price.
Rush ticket program
The Urb understands that you might not be able to commit to purchasing tickets until the last minute, because you’re very busy, indecisive, lazy, or some combination of the three. Beginning five minutes after the curtain rises on each performance, unsold tickets to that performance will be offered, at the box office only, for 50% of the regular price. Please note that no patron will be seated after the curtain rises. This includes during any intermission.
Standing room tickets
A limited number of standing room tickets will be available for each performance at a 10% discount. Because it is a violation of the local fire code to have any person standing in the theater house, anyone with a standing room ticket will be expected, in case of an emergency requiring evacuation of the building, to continue standing, very still, and let all patrons with tickets for seats exit to safety first.
Student discount tickets
The Urb appreciates that full-time students are often without the means to attend performances of genuine artistic merit. Because the Urb does not believe that anyone enrolled in a full-time undergraduate or graduate degree program has the sophistication to appreciate opera in any event, we offer no discounted tickets for students. To the contrary, the Urb reserves the right to refuse admittance to anyone that Urb staff has reason to believe is a full-time student. Anyone suspected of writing for the “Entertainment” or “Variety” section of a college newspaper will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Corporate discount tickets
Many companies, large and small alike, buy blocs of tickets to opera performances to give as gifts to clients or business partners, often visiting from foreign countries, because it seems sophisticated, even if those purchasing the tickets would never themselves go to the opera. This phenomenon is perfectly fine with the Urb, and to foster such corporate practice the Urb offers a $10 dollar-per-ticket discount (for up to ten tickets) with every $1,000 donation made to the Urb by a company in a calendar year.
Disabled patron ticket program
Blind patrons may purchase tickets at 70% of the regular price. Deaf patrons may purchase tickets at 110% of the regular price. The Urb does not recognize inability to understand a language other than English as a disability.
No senior citizen discount?
Seriously? That’s where we make 95% of our money. Old people regularly make up the bulk of our audience and buy a lot of drinks in the lobby. No.
What are the box office hours?
Monday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Sunday, 12 noon – 6 p.m.
Closed all federal holidays. Closed all Jewish holidays. Closed all Catholic feast days (for a ranking of liturgical days in the Roman Rite, click here). Closed from June 1 through August 31. Closed Mondays.
What are your refund, cancellation, and cast change policies?
Already planning to second-guess your decision to buy tickets to the opera, are you? Please be advised that it is the policy of the Urb that there are no refunds, cancellations, or exchanges. Once we have your money, we keep it. We do not care what you do with your tickets—except that if you are unable or unwilling to use your tickets, you may donate them to the Urb for resale. That’s right: We will not give you your money back, but we will sell your tickets to someone else. And if that person changes his or her mind, and there’s still time to resell the tickets again... we will do that. The Urb will issue you a tax receipt four weeks after the performance date.
Casting is subject to change without notice. In fact, cancellation of entire performances, for any reason or no reason at all, has been known to happen. In the event that the Urb cancels a performance, please refer to the policy on refunds. And don’t pretend that you’re disappointed. The Urb knows full well that no one ever really wants to go to the opera.
Matthew David Brozik wrote this and many other short humor pieces, which have been published in print and online by The New Yorker, Adult Swim, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Grin & Tonic, The Big Jewel, and no one.