Seats for an SNL broadcast on Saturday at 11:30pm or full dress rehearsal at 8pm are the most difficult to snag of any TV show based in New York.
Your first chance is each season’s ticket lottery held in August. To participate, send an email (only one per person and only during the monthlong lottery window) to snltickets@nbcuni.com. Include your full name and a reason why you want to be in the audience. If chosen, you’ll receive a “set number of tickets for a random show date and time.” You will only be notified if you are selected for the audience.
To book a standby reservation, go to NBC’s online reservation portal at 10am on the Thursday before a show and request up to four seats for either the dress rehearsal or live broadcast on Saturday night. Then wait to receive confirmation in the form of a reservation number sent to your email (reservation numbers are issued in the order requests are received). If you get a reservation number, you and all members of your party (all attendees must be 16 or older) must then check in between 6pm and 7pm on the Friday before the show day at the in-person standby line located at the 49th Street NBC Studios marquee of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
If you didn’t get a standby reservation number, you can wait at the end of the line anyway for a standby card—those are issued at 12:01am on Saturday, about 23 hours and 30 minutes before the live show starts. And the standby card still doesn’t guarantee admission. Seems like a lot of work for, what, maybe three laughs total during the entire broadcast?
For more details, see SNL‘s ticket info web page.