One of the greatest things about living in New York City and raising kids is the fact that there are endless playgrounds and kid-related activities — as long as you do the research, know where to look, and also jump on events quickly! Most of the free or low-cost events are, predictably, very high in demand and popular, so for you to get tickets to these events will require you to be on all the email or text lists and to act on them almost immediately. In the last couple of years, I’d been more on top of keeping up with Lincoln Center free or low cost events for Kaia in mind, but this year, I haven’t been as good about checking their website and opening all their emails in a timely manner. My friend, who has a child who is a similar age to Kaia, told me today that there was a new Beethoven kids event at the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center for May that he and his wife would be interested in taking their toddler to, and asked if I’d be interested. I saw that there was a steep processing fee to book the tickets online, so I called the venue to ask if I could go to the box office to get around the processing fees. She told me that I could actually forgo the processing fees if I just booked with her on the phone right there. But I wasn’t sure if my friend had a specific time in mind, or if he had purchased their tickets yet. So I asked her how many tickets were remaining. Well, the seating that my friend originally wanted had only TWO tickets left (there are five of us!), and the seating before had five left, which would have been an exact fit. The first performance of the day at 11am had already sold out. And this event had just been socialized the day before!

I ended up booking all five of our tickets for the 1pm showing on that May date. But it just goes to show how quick anything that is both kid-related and low-cost/free will go here in New York City. There’s always seemingly someone else who is more click-happy than you are!