Broadway Show Ticket Sales Analysis w/e 8/16/2015

“Hamilton” Continues To Reap It In

In the week ending August 16, 2015, Hamilton was the fourth highest-grossing show on Broadway, only coming in behind The Lion King, Wicked, and Aladdin. This week, it brought in nearly its highest gross yet at $1,459,314, which represents 109.32% of its gross potential. This was the fifth full week of performances.

The record for their weekly gross so far took place two weeks prior, the week ending August 2, 2015, when it brought in $1,490,816. That represented 111.67% of the show’s gross potential. In addition, for the first two weeks of only seven performances as opposed to the usual eight, the show brought in a lower overall gross but a higher percentage of gross potential, at 110.30% and 111.51% of the show’s gross potential for the first two weeks of the run, respectively.

Rave Reviews Pour In For "Hamilton"

Still, this past week demonstrated that Hamilton is a bona fide hit, as sales continue to be strong after the show’s opening night when it received a round of rave reviews from critics far and wide. This past week, the top ticket price was $275.00, and the average paid admission was $136.31, which is a big jump from last week’s average ticket price of $117.99. It continues to be very tough to score a ticket to this hot show, and the box office figures are demonstrating this fact.

Otherwise A Slower Week On Broadway

Other than Hamilton’s continued financial success, this past week demonstrated a decrease in overall ticket sales for the 25 shows that were running. Of these 25 shows, only four demonstrated an increase in ticket sales from the week before: Hamilton went up by $204,151, Amazing Grace went up by $26,511, Mamma Mia! went up by $15,995, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch went up by $3,687. Other than Hamilton, all of these increases are fairly negligible.

Overall, the entire industry saw a decrease in ticket sales of $1,317,989, which is a decrease of 5.36% from the week before. The biggest decreases were seen by Aladdin which went down by $299,545 but still grossed the impressive figure of $1,778,618, Penn & Teller on Broadway which went down by $268,702 in its final week of performances, and The Lion King which went down by $168,470 but still brought in the highest weekly gross of any show of $2,165,067.

Big Decreases For "The Book Of Mormon" And "Matilda"

Furthermore, six-figure decreases were seen by The Book of Mormon and Matilda. Therefore, though the overall industry saw a relative downturn, it is mainly the high-grossing shows that went down in ticket sales, rather than the low-grossing shows reaching a point of desperation.

As the summer is coming to a close, the high tourist season will also be wrapping up in the next few weeks. As the fall shows begin to open, we will see a switch towards more New Yorkers attending the theatre, and an increased interest in straight plays rather than just the high-grossing musicals.