Published 2026-09-21 by the Rushxo team. More guides.
Short answer: book tickets direct or at TKTS, eat at 17:30 not 18:30, and pre-book a car for curtain-down from a side street. The West End is 39 theatres inside a square mile; the hard part is not the show, it is the 20,000 people leaving at the same time.
Pre-theatre menus run roughly 17:00 to 18:45 and are the best value dinners in central London: two courses for £25 to £35 at J Sheekey, The Ivy Market Grill, Côte, Brasserie Zédel (Piccadilly, the biggest bargain) and most of Covent Garden. Book for 17:30 for a 19:30 curtain. Chinatown is the reliable walk-in option for a 19:00 start.
Leicester Square and Covent Garden tubes are rammed for 25 minutes after the shows finish, and the last trains on most lines are around 00:30 (later on Friday and Saturday Night Tube). Ride-hail apps surge at exactly 22:15 when the theatres empty. A pre-booked car is the same fixed fare at any hour: give us the show's finish time, we set the pickup 15 minutes later on the nearest open street, and the driver waits. Typical West End to Kensington, Canary Wharf or St Pancras is under £45 for a saloon; to Heathrow from £85.
Evening performances start at 19:00 or 19:30 and most finish between 21:45 and 22:30. Matinees at 14:00 or 14:30 end around 17:00. Book your car for 15 minutes after the advertised running time.
Not outside the theatre door: Shaftesbury Avenue and St Martin's Lane are closed or gridlocked at curtain-down. Your driver will give you a pickup point on the nearest side street, usually a two-minute walk, and waits there.
TKTS in Leicester Square (same day, from 10:30), the official show lotteries and rush tickets on TodayTix, and midweek matinees. Avoid third-party resellers outside the theatre.
Not with Rushxo. The fare is the same fixed price at 22:30 as at 14:00, and there is no surge when it rains.
Rushxo runs fixed-price transfers to events and venues, every major airport and cruise terminal, and towns and cities right across London and the South East. Every journey is a fixed price agreed before you book.
O2 Arena · Wembley Stadium · Twickenham Stadium · Emirates Stadium · Ascot Racecourse · Epsom Derby · Download Festival · Brands Hatch
Gatwick Airport · Heathrow Airport · Stansted Airport · Luton Airport · London City Airport · Southend Airport · Cruise transfers
London · Brighton · Canterbury · Chelmsford · Cambridge · Oxford · Guildford
Airport transfers · Events & venues · Event airport transfers
Planning the whole holiday? The Christmas and New Year transfers page covers airport runs on the days with no trains, New Year's Eve pickups around the fireworks closures and party transport, all at fixed fares with no seasonal uplift.