Broadway Show Ticket Sales Analysis w/e 08/21/2016

A Serious Slump Week For Broadway

In the week ending August 21, 2016, the waning summer sun was wooing the patrons away from the indoor entertainment of Broadway. That week, of the 26 shows currently running, there was a collective drop in weekly grosses of $1,404,938. While last week’s average gross per show was $939,036, this past week had an average gross per show of $885,000.

Whereas the previous week had an average paid admission of $105.36, this past week’s average went down only slightly to $103.34. Therefore, the drop was not so much in theatregoers’ spending abilities but rather in the interest shown towards buying tickets. The greatest decrease was seen by Wicked, which went down by $204,059 to reach a weekly gross of $1,575,605, which represents 88.5% of its gross potential.

Biggest Decrease Was Seen By "The Lion King"

Prior to this past week, Wicked hasn’t had their percentage reached of gross potential drop into the 80s since May 2016. The next biggest drop was seen by The Lion King, which went down by $185,885 to reach a weekly gross of $2,048,009; that gross still represents 103.5% of its gross potential.

Other major decreases were seen by School of Rock, which went down by $109,515 to reach a gross of $1,051,179, The Color Purple, which decreased by $108,762 to reach a weekly gross of $609,638, The Phantom of the Opera, which went down by $106,520 to reach a weekly gross of $893,112, Aladdin, which went down by $101,854 to reach a gross of $1,561,265, and The Humans, which went down by $100,897 to reach a weekly gross of $502,873.

“Finding Neverland” Saw Tiny Step Up In Final Week

On August 21, 2016, Finding Neverland played the final performance of its Broadway premiere run. The producer of this musical, Harvey Weinstein, had high hopes for a long and profitable run, as this was his first foray into Broadway producing in the midst of a long and successful film-producing career.

Based off a film produced by his company, Miramax, Harvey thought that this was a good bet for surefire Broadway hit material. However, the reviews were pitiful, and the Tony committee didn’t even give the musical so much as one nomination. Nevertheless, audiences did take to the show for a time, as it brought in weekly grosses over one million dollars for many weeks on end in the first five months of the run.

Closing On Broadway Leads To National Tour

However, almost a year and a half into performances, it was undeniable that the profits were not forthcoming, and thus Harvey changed his strategy. He decided to close the Broadway production and send the show on a U.S. national tour, as well as an upcoming production in London. In the final week of this show’s performances, it did show a small increase in ticket sales, although nothing to write home about.

This past week, it went up by $91,708, reaching a final weekly gross of $720,603, which represents 48.82% of its gross potential. Nonetheless, this is the show’s highest gross since the week ending April 3, 2016, and thus this shows that at least a small contingent of theatregoers were sad to see this show disappear, and wanted one last shot at seeing it on stage.

The following are the Broadway ticket sales numbers for the week ending August 21, 2016:

Broadway ticket sales raw data are provided courtesy of The Broadway League. All other data, text, opinion, charts, and commentary are copyright © 2016 nytix.com