In The Week Ending January 18, 2015, Motown Was One Of The Highest-Grossing Shows On Broadway During Final Week. Mama Mia And Les Misérables Decrease.


"Motown" Rises To The Occasion Of Its Final Week

In the week ending January 18, 2015, Motown was one of the highest-grossing Broadway shows, beat only by the regular top earners The Lion King, Wicked, The Book of Mormon, and Aladdin. It brought in $1,299,340, which was an increase of $213,298 from the previous week.

The reason behind this upswing is that Motown played the final performance of its present run on that date: January 18, 2015. After a financially and critically successful run of 738 performances (and 37 preview performances), Motown the Musical decided to shutter its doors.

Unusual Hiatus For "Motown"

However, in an unusual move, the producers announced that this closing would not be permanent and that the show would take an 18-month hiatus and return in July 2016. In the meantime, a run will open in London, for which they will use the Broadway costumes and sets, thus saving some money.

Also, a U.S. national tour which began in April 2014 is still running. Thus, Motown is not saying goodbye for long; it’s just using some innovative reasoning to take a break from Broadway. Nevertheless, in this past week, it demonstrated that fans still love the show, as the show managed its highest weekly gross in over a year, and the last month of performances have all been financially healthy as well.

Productions Showing A Drop In Sales

This past week, The Elephant Man starring Bradley Cooper, which has been performing very well at the box office, saw a decrease in box office of $315,940, bringing in only $678,450. However, this decrease was due merely to the fact that the production played only 5 performances this past week, likely due to actor conflicts.

In that light, the show still made 111.75% of its gross potential, and it’s therefore still doing very well. For the most part, the other shows that demonstrated a decrease in ticket sales from the week prior are the top-earning musicals that could afford a decline. After The Elephant Man, the biggest decrease was seen by The Lion King, which went down by $118,853.

Big Decreases For "Mama Mia!" And "Phantom Of The Opera"

Still, in the scheme of things, this is not a big drop, as the mega-musical still brought in a weekly gross of $1,721,611, which was the top earning show this past week.

Next, decreases were seen by Mamma Mia! (went down by $74,423 to a gross of $476,709), The Phantom of the Opera (went down by $66,507 to a gross of $747,735), Chicago (went down by $43,494 to a gross of $437,317), Jersey Boys (went down by $41,140 to a gross of $742,891), Les Misérables (went down by $35,041 to a gross of $724,649), and Beautiful (went down by $9,734 to a gross of $1,062,857). For the most part, these shows could handle the minor losses, and they are all still holding up on Broadway.

The following are the Broadway ticket sales numbers for the week ending January 18, 2015:

Broadway Show Ticket Analysis w/e 1/18/15
Show Name GrossGross TotalAttn %Capacity AvgPdAdm
A DELICATE BALANCE $641,797 5,349 83.37% $119.98
A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER $749,039 6,926 95.45% $108.15
ALADDIN $1,487,116 13,785 100.01% $107.88
BEAUTIFUL $1,062,857 7,630 92.96% $139.30
CABARET $914,904 7,013 98.17% $130.46
CHICAGO $437,317 5,771 66.79% $75.78
CONSTELLATIONS $432,399 5,828 99.62% $74.19
DISGRACED $404,998 5,238 71.32% $77.32
HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH $692,620 6,633 94.10% $104.42
HONEYMOON IN VEGAS $440,476 7,659 81.55% $57.51
IF/THEN $651,330 8,377 79.87% $77.75
IT’S ONLY A PLAY $693,963 7,340 85.83% $94.55
JERSEY BOYS $742,891 8,032 81.76% $92.49
KINKY BOOTS $1,051,429 9,658 84.78% $108.87
LES MISÉRABLES $724,649 8,990 79.76% $80.61
MAMMA MIA! $476,709 6,333 67.89% $75.27
MATILDA $987,374 11,041 96.38% $89.43
MOTOWN THE MUSICAL $1,299,340 12,196 89.92% $106.54
ON THE TOWN $649,289 9,863 65.79% $65.83
ROCK OF AGES $492,533 4,542 97.38% $108.44
THE BOOK OF MORMON $1,659,010 8,752 102.63% $189.56
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME $883,489 8,101 99.47% $109.06
THE ELEPHANT MAN $678,450 3,978 102.79% $170.55
THE LAST SHIP $838,274 9,017 83.55% $92.97
THE LION KING $1,721,611 13,200 97.06% $130.43
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA $747,735 9,402 73.22% $79.53
THE RIVER $722,987 5,698 102.33% $126.88
WICKED $1,684,664 14,310 98.88% $117.73
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU $445,041 5,883 68.53% $75.65
Totals $24,414,288 236,545 87.63% $103.00

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