By Karen Carter | Posted on April 25, 2018 1:25 PM
The Broadway Spring Season Is Almost Complete, And The Box Office Stayed Steady With A Few Ups And Downs, Resulting In An Overall Gross Equivalent To The Previous Week.
Broadway Box Office Holds Steady
In the week ending April 22, 2018, the Broadway box office stayed largely steady as the spring season settles into place. The last day that a show can open this year and still be eligible for Tony Awards consideration is this upcoming Thursday, April 26th. As such, we are coming to the final days for new shows to open that will be vying for awards consideration.
This past week, of 36 shows currently running, 21 saw an increase in ticket sales, and 15 saw a decrease in ticket sales. The biggest increase was seen by Carousel, coming off of its opening week, where there had been a decrease in ticket sales to account for complimentary tickets during press previews.
Carousel and Children of a Lesser God Increase
This past week, Carousel went up by $227,713 to reach a weekly gross of $1,282,413, or 79.03% of its gross potential. To date, Carousel has brought in 68.28% of its gross potential, so perhaps this is a sign of an upward trend following the relatively positive reviews. The next biggest increase was seen by Children of a Lesser God, which went up by $123,784 to reach a weekly gross of $354,180, or 35.7% of its gross potential. Like Carousel, Children of a Lesser God is coming off of its opening night, but in its case the reviews were not very good.
Therefore, even though there is an increase in ticket sales due to increased awareness, the box office is still in fairly dire condition. With a top ticket price of $247, the average paid admission was $58.13, and the audience was filled up to 81.8% of capacity, representing a significant amount of discounting.
Ebbs and Flows Keep Broadway In Balance
Other less significant increases were seen by Mean Girls, which went up by $87,785 to reach a weekly gross of $1,469,881, or 100.0% of gross potential, Summer, which went up by $68,500 to reach a weekly gross of $962,917, or 66.1%, The Phantom of the Opera, which went up by $57,670 to reach a weekly gross of $1,081,646, or 79.7%, Wicked, which went up by $54,553 to reach a weekly gross of $1,798,728, or 101.1% Chicago, which went up by $47,400 to reach a weekly gross of $700,234, or 73.1% , and Three Tall Women, which went up by $41,173 to reach a weekly gross of $853,774, or 91.6%.
Meanwhile, the biggest decrease was seen by Springsteen on Broadway, as he went back to a 4-performance week, down from the usual week of 5 shows, so the weekly gross went down by $487,545 to reach a total of $1,925,155, which still represents 100.9% of gross potential.
Harry Potter Fails To Deliver
In addition, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child went down by $428,974 to reach a weekly gross of $1,272,136, which represents 68.6% of gross potential. This stark drop from this incredibly reviewed, newly opened production is almost certainly due to an onslaught of complimentary tickets given out during press previews and on opening night, which was at the end of this past week on Sunday, April 22, 2018.
As such, we can expect to see an increase in ticket sales for Harry Potter starting the following week. Overall, the entire box office decreased by just $222,840 from the week before, over 36 shows running.
