Broadway Show Ticket Sales Analysis w/e 11/15/2015

This Week’s Notable Movements on Broadway are:

Two New Shows: “School of Rock” and “The Color Purple”

In the week ending November 15, 2015, two new shows began previews on Broadway. On November 9, 2015, School of Rock – The Musical began previews at the Winter Garden Theatre. In its first week of eight performances, it brought in a weekly gross of $928,596, which represents 63.8% of its gross potential. Almost reaching the million dollar mark, this is a very good initial weekly box office gross for a show that has not yet received opening night reviews. Of course, the numbers are enhanced by the brand name recognition of the show, as it is based off a very successful feature film starring Jack Black. Whereas this show does not star Jack Black – it stars Alex Brightman in the role of Dewey, played by Black in the film – it does still carry very fond memories for those who have seen the film.

There is new music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, satisfying the appetite for the traditional theatergoing population. Furthermore, November 10, 2015 saw the start of previews for the current revival of The Color Purple, which stars Jennifer Hudson in her Broadway debut. Hudson rose to stardom after her memorable performance in the screen version of Dreamgirls. In its first week of six performances, The Color Purple brought in a weekly gross of $690,820, representing 89.0% of its gross potential. With a top ticket price of $193.00, the average paid admission was $111.67, showing a strong box office interest in Jennifer Hudson.

A Steady Week on Broadway Despite the Two New Shows

While the two new shows that began previews on Broadway last week are both showing strong signs of becoming box office hits, the other running shows stayed fairly steady at the box office. Of the 34 shows running this week that were also running last week, the average weekly box office this week was $791,006. In comparison, the same 34 shows last week averaged $783,547. Of these 34, 15 saw an increase in ticket sales, whereas 19 saw a decrease in ticket sales. The greatest increase was seen by the Gloria and Emilio Estefan musical On Your Feet!, which brought in $1,279,611 this week, an increase of $209,414 from the week before. This increased interest is due to the positive reviews that came in after the opening night performance.

Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games saw an increase of $165,057, reaching a weekly box office gross of $396,719. This is only a significant increase because the number of performances doubled from 4 to 8. However, the show is performing quite badly overall, as this week’s gross represents only 26.41% of its gross potential, down from 30.17% last week. In contrast, Allegiance went up by $150,772 to reach a still middling but more hopeful weekly gross of $571,750.

"China Doll" Beats the Odds on Broadway

Finally, the last six figure increase was seen by China Doll, which mystifyingly brought in a weekly gross of $1,202,149, an increase of $144,641, despite wide reports that the show is in dire straits. In fact, it delayed opening in order to have more time to prepare, or rather, to prepare audiences for the bad news that their non-refundable ticket purchase was in vain.

The Following are the Broadway Ticket Sales Numbers for the Week Ending November 15, 2015:

Broadway ticket sales raw data are provided courtesy of The Broadway League All other data, text, opinion, charts and commentary are copyright © 2015 nytix.com