SNL officially promotes an email based lottery system for SNL ticket applications which they claim is open in the month of August every year.During a recent straw poll that we conducted with an exiting SNL audience, none of the people questioned said that they received their SNL tickets in this way - It appears that the email lottery system is either not used or is ineffective. Most were standby, many were friends of the SNL production staff, others were NBC employees and the smallest groups consisted of celebrity entourage and regular SNL ticket holders.
Yes you can, however, SNL does its ticket lottery in August, therefore, stand-by tickets are the only way to go right now. Tickets are distributed at 7am on the 49th Street side of 30 Rockefeller Plaza on the morning of the taping. You can do either the dress rehearsal or the live taping.Subway: take the B , D , F or V lines (Orange Line) to 47th/50th Street - Rockefeller Center.Good luck