Total Broadway ticket sales revenue continued to fall sharply again this week, as anticipated, during this first week of September, bringing in less than $17 million total. The period between "summer break" and the opening of the new Fall shows can be a little bleak, but producers are hoping that once the new season gets into full swing over the next couple months, business will pick up, which the ticket sales history from previous years confirms.
This week, the Broadway big guns like Evita and Wicked were far from filling to capacity, hovering around the 85% capacity mark. The Book of Mormon continues to blow the rest of the shows out of the water, filling to 102.63% capacity week after week - with a huge average paid admission of $187.37.
The newly opened musical Chaplin surprised everyone by leaping to 94.06% capacity (up from last week's 75.35%), though average paid admission remains relatively low at $62.16. Unfortunately, the show received poor reviews from the Broadway critics, but as everyone knows, only the out-of-towners read the reviews - New Yorkers like to make up their own mind about shows and instead operate on word-of-mouth from their own social networks, which has been favorable for this show, prior to the critics' reviews delivered this week. This bio-musical about Charlie Chaplin has an open-ended closing date.
Gore Vidal's The Best Man didn't go out with a bang, but it did have a solid closing week, with the average paid admission nearly hitting the $100 mark. Far less impressive was the first week for the Manhattan Theatre Club production of An Enemy of the People, which had an average paid admission of a mere $46.04 this past week. Lower numbers are to be expected given that the play is only in previews, so reviews and word-of-mouth could give it a boost in the next few weeks - this could also speak to the producers papering the theatre, dragging the numbers into the gutter.
The following are the Broadway ticket sales numbers from the week ending September 9, 2012:
Show Name
GrossGross
TotalAttn
%Cap
AvgPaidAdmin
AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
$158,664
3446
76.44%
$46.04
BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL
$416,594
6922
64.86%
$60.18
CHAPLIN
$488,740
7863
94.06%
$62.16
CHICAGO
$609,315
7582
87.75%
$80.36
EVITA
$1,127,304
10893
84.47%
$103.49
GORE VIDAL’S THE BEST MAN
$685,991
6899
81.13%
$99.43
JERSEY BOYS
$891,077
9064
92.26%
$98.31
MAMMA MIA!
$741,090
9333
77.88%
$79.41
MARY POPPINS
$637,053
9692
67.42%
$65.73
NEWSIES
$808,755
9138
95.59%
$88.50
NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT
$878,834
9307
80.85%
$94.43
ONCE
$979,937
8145
96.23%
$120.31
PETER AND THE STARCATCHER
$347,198
5919
71.28%
$58.66
PORGY AND BESS
$610,897
6986
65.41%
$87.45
ROCK OF AGES
$463,916
4470
95.84%
$103.78
SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK
$1,204,959
13283
86.03%
$90.71
THE BOOK OF MORMON
$1,639,848
8752
102.63%
$187.37
THE LION KING
$1,566,963
13351
99.52%
$117.37
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
$829,896
11134
86.71%
$74.54
WAR HORSE
$525,232
7069
82.66%
$74.30
WICKED
$1,313,195
12350
85.34%
$106.33
Total:
$16,925,456
181598
84.49%
$90.42
*Broadway Grosses provided courtesy of The Broadway League
