Gilt, feathers and a curtain at nine

Every cabaret worth booking a night around. Pigalle to Patong.

Which Moulin Rouge ticket includes the champagne and which one only buys the seat. What Simon Cabaret costs in Patong. Whether the dinner sitting is worth turning up ninety minutes early. Reviews of the cabaret, burlesque and drag shows you can actually book a seat at.

Start at the Moulin Rouge Open the full bill →

156cabaret nights to book

$9cheapest seat in the house

71seats you can book under $50

Paris Moulin Rouge Cabaret Show Ticket with Champagne★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · from $115

Phuket Simon Cabaret Show Admission Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · from $25

Tokyo Japanese Dance Cabaret Theater Asakusa-Kaguwa Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · from $49

Four rooms first

Four rooms that explain what cabaret actually is.

A dinner sitting on Boulevard de Clichy, a Bangkok revue with a Thai set menu, a Las Vegas burlesque residency and a Prague stage with a four-course option. What each costs, and what the people in the seats said.

Where the good rooms are

Six cities that keep a cabaret on six nights a week.

Pigalle wrote the template and never let go of it. Bangkok and Phuket turned it into a nightly institution. Las Vegas made it a residency, Pattaya a spectacle, Berlin a hundred-year habit. Six places, and the best seat in each.

Best ofParisPigalle, the cancan and a dress code Best ofBangkokRiverside revues with a set dinner Best ofPhuketPatong ladyboy cabaret, three shows a night Best ofLas VegasBurlesque and variety, on residency Best ofPattayaAlcazar and Tiffany, a street apart Best ofBerlinKabarett, a century in

The Thai houses

Thailand runs the biggest cabaret houses outside Paris.

Three names carry the country: Simon in Patong, Calypso on the Bangkok riverside, Alcazar and Tiffany a street apart in Pattaya. The same feathers and the same eighty-dancer finale, at a ticket price that would buy you a drink in Pigalle.

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · Calypso Cabaret Show with Thai Set Dinner

Simon CabaretPatong. Three showtimes a night, seat class fixed at booking. from $25

Calypso CabaretBangkok riverside. Add the Thai set dinner and arrive early. from $25

Alcazar CabaretPattaya. The widest stage of the three, and the loudest. from $28 All 48 Thai cabaret nights →

The Paris houses

Four Paris houses, and they are not interchangeable.

The Moulin Rouge sells the cancan, a half-bottle and a dress code. Paradis Latin is the small one, in a hall Gustave Eiffel rebuilt for the 1889 exposition. Crazy Horse is lighting and silhouette in a room small enough that the tier you book decides the evening. Choose the house first and the ticket tier second.

Every Paris curtain

Best ofMoulin RougeBest ofParadis LatinBest ofCrazy HorseBest ofAll of Paris

The sitting question

The dinner sitting is a different ticket and usually a different evening.

A champagne ticket buys the seat and a half-bottle at the interval. The dinner sitting puts you at a table an hour and a half earlier, closer to the stage, with the menu run before the curtain goes up. On a Seine boat the order flips: dinner sails first and the show follows it.

With dinner Dinner cruises With champagne VIP tiers With transfers

What a night costs

What a cabaret seat costs, Patong to Pigalle.

Every show on the site grouped by the cheapest seat you can book into it. The gap between a Thai revue and a Paris dinner sitting is the whole story of this activity.

Under $50

Bangkok and Phuket revues, the Pattaya spectaculars, drag nights and most burlesque rooms.

1Japanese Dance Cabaret Theater Asakusa-Kaguwa Ticketfrom $49
2Calypso Cabaret Show with Thai Set Dinnerfrom $28
3V – The Ultimate Variety Show at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casinofrom $37

$50–150

Paris seat-only tickets with the half-bottle, the Prague and Berlin stages, Las Vegas variety.

1Moulin Rouge Cabaret Show Ticket with Champagnefrom $115
2Crazy Horse Cabaret Showfrom $140
3Paradis Latin Cabaret Show with Optional Champagnefrom $106

$150 and up

Paris dinner sittings, Seine dinner cruises and the front tiers at the big houses.

1Dinner Show at the Moulin Rougefrom $300
2Seine Dinner Cruise, Eiffel Tower Access and Moulin Rouge Showfrom $483
3Evening Sightseeing Tour and Moulin Rouge Showfrom $200

Not all feathers

Three kinds of night that share a stage and nothing else.

Burlesque is tease and timing. Drag is a microphone and a room that answers back. Musical theatre took the cabaret and put a plot in it. The same seat, three entirely different evenings.

Tease and timing

Burlesque

Burlesque is the older tradition and the smaller room: a fan dance, a corset, a live band and a compere working the tables between numbers. Las Vegas turned it into a nightly residency with a Luxor or Planet Hollywood address; Berlin and London keep it closer to the variety bill it grew out of. Reckon on ninety minutes, a two-drink habit, and a dress code nobody enforces.

1Fantasy Burlesque Show at Luxor Hotel & Casino★★★★★★★★★★ · 354 reviews
2Showgirls of Burlesque Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 173 reviews
3Burlesque Cabaret Show in the West End★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 127 reviews

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Microphone first

Drag

A drag show stands or falls on the host rather than the costumes. Brunches and bar nights in Liverpool, Key West and Canggu run to one shape: numbers between courses, a bingo card or a tribute set, and a room that is expected to shout back. Cheaper than cabaret proper, later in the evening, and rarely seated in rows at all.

1FunnyBoyz Liverpool – Drag Shows, Tributes, Brunches & Bar Crawls★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 540 reviews
2Drag Show with Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 414 reviews
3Comedy Drag Show Music Hall Tavern with Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 139 reviews

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A plot arrives

Musical theatre

Moulin Rouge! The Musical took the Paris house, added a book and a jukebox score, and put it in the West End, on Broadway and in Cologne. Cabaret did the reverse a lifetime earlier, setting its story inside a Weimar club. Both sell theatre seats rather than table seats, both run past two hours, and both keep an interval.

1Moulin Rouge! the Musical on Broadway★★★★★★★★★★ · 1,329 reviews
2Cabaret – The Berlin Musical at Tipi am Kanzleramt★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 303 reviews
3Moulin Rouge! The Musical Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ · 293 reviews

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Before the door

Four things about a cabaret ticket that decide the night.

Cabaret is one of the few nights out where the seat class, the arrival time and the dress code are all settled weeks before you turn up. None of the four below is negotiable once you are standing at the door.

01Moulin Rouge Cabaret Show Ticket with ChampagneSmart dress at the door: no shorts, no sportswear, no beachwear. It is enforced, and there is no cloakroom fix for it.
02Crazy Horse Cabaret ShowThe salon is small and the tier you book is the view you get. The rows nearest the stage go long before the date does.
03Simon Cabaret Show Admission TicketThree showtimes a night and a seat class set at booking. Choosing the row when you arrive is not on offer.
04Dinner Show at the Moulin RougeThe dinner sitting starts well before the curtain, so a dinner ticket sets your arrival time and the showtime is the second half of it.