Cheap theatre tickets in Saint Petersburg: a 1,100-rouble balcony and the resold ticket that fails at the door

The story repeats every autumn. A visitor decides that a trip to Saint Petersburg is incomplete without the Mariinsky, clicks the first link in the search results, pays twelve thousand roubles for two stalls seats and arrives happy. At the door it turns out the ticket was not sold by the theatre, the printed price has been rubbed out, the name on it belongs to somebody else, and entry is refused. Nobody refunds that money. Meanwhile the theatre's own box office still had balcony seats for the same performance at 1,100 roubles.

What cheap seats actually cost

A snapshot from the official Mariinsky ticket system, taken on 18 September 2026. For Un ballo in maschera at Mariinsky II that same evening, balcony seats were 1,100–1,400 roubles, first tier 2,700, stalls 3,600–4,200. For Parsifal, stalls ran 7,000–8,000, the dress circle 5,800–7,400, the first tier 5,800–6,600 and the balcony 2,900–3,200. For Anna Bolena, stalls held at 7,000–8,000 while the balcony started at 3,200.

The pattern is stable: the balcony costs two to three times less than the stalls. Side seats are cheaper than central ones in the same row, too. And the Mariinsky Concert Hall on Pisareva Street is cheaper still — a chamber evening there was 1,400–1,600 in the stalls and 1,000 roubles in the dress circle, the same orchestra without the scenery.

When tickets go on sale

People see "no tickets" on a theatre website and go straight to resellers. That is the expensive mistake. The Maly Drama Theatre — Theatre of Europe states in its official rules that the sale opening date for each month is announced on the theatre's website: if sales have not opened, the "Buy ticket" button simply does not exist yet, which is not the same as being sold out. The Mariinsky publishes much further ahead — on 18 September 2026 its playbill offered months up to May 2027, and the cheap tier and balcony seats are the first to disappear.

One more Mariinsky rule worth knowing: online sales for a performance stop one hour before curtain and move to the box offices, and thirty minutes before the start the desks sell only for that evening's performance.

Box offices

The Mariinsky box offices at Teatralnaya Square 1, Dekabristov 34 and Pisareva 20 work daily 11:00–19:00 with a one-hour break; the desk in the Great Gostiny Dvor works 11:00–20:00. The Alexandrinsky box office is open 11:00–20:00 with a break from 14:00 to 15:00. The Maly Drama Theatre desk on Rubinshteina 18 works daily 12:00–19:00 with a short break, and stays open until curtain when the evening show starts at 19:30 or later.

Why a resold ticket may not work

The Mariinsky warns on its official site that a ticket with any alteration, including anything that hides information printed on it, is invalid, and admission is refused without compensation — electronic tickets included. Hiding the face value is exactly what resellers do first. Named tickets are the second barrier: the buyer must enter the visitor's full name and show an identity document together with the ticket on the day. Third, resale is forbidden by the theatre's rules, which allow a penalty of 100,000 roubles for an individual and 300,000 for a company for each ticket sold in breach. The theatre also warns about clone websites that copy its design and advertise inflated prices.

Refunds and small print

The Alexandrinsky publishes the standard refund ladder: an application filed no later than 10 days before the event returns 100% of the price, 10 to 5 days returns 50%, 5 to 3 days returns 30%, and less than 3 days returns nothing. The Maly Drama Theatre allows self-service online refunds no later than three days before the performance. Buying two weeks ahead is therefore both cheaper and reversible.

Finally, latecomers. At the Alexandrinsky, entry to the auditorium after the third bell is forbidden outright. At the Mariinsky you may take a seat offered by an usher and move to your own during the interval. All prices, hours and rules above come from the theatres' official websites and were checked on 18 September 2026.

Фото: Nikolai Bulykin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0