If you are going to buy you have to decide the car you want to drive most of the time. They “share.” It’s the difference between buying a car and using Zip Car. They felt a sense of ownership, maybe even started friendships with their neighbors.īut the world isn’t like that anymore. Maybe once upon a time people liked having the same seats every time.

This is just unacceptable to most people who’ve come of age in a choose-your-own seats world. Plus, you get the same seats in the same section for your entire series. And worst of all, while you do get to choose your seating section, you don’t get to choose your actual seats. You’re booking everything so far in advance, there’s a good chance something is going to come up on one of those nights. The reviews aren’t out yet and a few of the operas in your chosen series might turn out to be clunkers. The operas you most want to see may not be locked into the same series. The main issue is the lack of flexibility. Although the Met has started to update the system a little bit – adding the possibility of exchanges if you can’t make a date in your series, it’s still a clunky system that requires subscribers to deal with customer service if they want to make changes– probably by phone – or to visit the box office. Your actual tickets won’t arrive till long after you’ve forgotten which nights you’re going, what you are seeing, or which credit card is going to have the charges. Yes, you can subscribe online, but basically your request goes to human beings who will process it at some later date - weeks or months later. The current subscription system still has an analog mentality in a digital age. Sounds great, right? So why didn’t we go for it? Payment plans so you don’t get a big bite out of your credit card all at once.Opportunity to buy non-subscription tickets before they go on sale to the public for additional operas, including hot new productions unavailable by subscription.Reserve seats before they are on sale to general public.Here are some of the pluses that you get as a Met subscriber: So why didn’t we get a subscription? After all, subscriptions have their advantages. This year we will be winging it at the Met.

Metropolitan opera subscriptions