Broadway Grosses This Week: Worse than Pitiful! — Page 2

I'm really surprised in Bklyn. I saw it Friday night and I sat in the orchestra. I think just about every seat was taken! I'd say 92% of the orchestra was taken. The cheap thing they did though was bribe people. The first 25 people to respond to an e-mail won 2 free tickets each for Brooklyn (that's why I went)...It was probably an excuse to make attendence % higher but I didn't care. IT WAS A FREE B-WAY SHOW!

With the February school break coming the numbers should start an upswing. We'll be seeing Movin Out DRS and FB. Movin Out will be a 2nd time for Dave and I but our daughter wanted to see it. Hopefully a 4th show can be squeezed in.

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Benzy wrote:

>Brooklyn, Beauty (or very close.. 450,000 enough?), Chicago (340,000 CANT be enough), Good Vibrations (reported to be 375,000 a week needed), La Cage prob. just above break even at 443,000, Rent (275,000 is break even Variety reported).. that means around 6 shows REALLY struggled last week<

The thing is with Beauty, Chicago and Rent, most long-running shows cut their operating expenses by reducing their advertising in January and February. You may see some maintenance ads in The New York Times on Wednesday, Friday or Sunday for them, but not a heck of a lot else. The reasoning is that a long-running show is dependent on tourists, and you don't need to spend a ton of money chasing after tourists that aren't in town. So you keep your ad budget low, so that you survive and reduce your weekly operating expense. Chances are, all three of those shows broke even last week. And even if they didn't, they have made so much money for their producers that they can afford to float them for a couple of weeks at a mild loss, if necessary.

Good Vibrations, La Cage and Brooklyn are more vulnerable, as they are newer and still need to make some noise in the marketplace to let people know they are here.

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Updated On: 2/7/05 at 09:25 PM

Well said, Magruder. Those other shows are in a very different position, because, being long-running hits, they've already recouped and have a lot more flexibility financially during the winter doldrums when the box office is down. Brooklyn, La Cage et al, are still just struggling to even survive (forget about paying back their investors at this point).

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It's a shame that La Cage went down that much. I hate when bad things happen to good shows

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CONGRATS TO WICKED! IT IS A REAL BROADWAY SHOW! IT IS CAPABLE OF DIPPING BELOW 100%!

"I think it is interesting that Good Vibrations had about the same percentage as The Producers, Chicago, Beauty and the Beast, and more than Rent and La Cage..."

It's like a bad car accident...you're repulsed by it, yet can't help looking at it...

Ooof. But, yeah. As everyone said... it's February. It's bound to be pretty damn lean right now.

Heh. Ya know, I was toying around with the idea, but I might just pop down to the city this coming weekend to support my friendly local (okay, so it's a 3 1/2 hour drive..) Broadway. Been meaning to catch a show lately...

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But in the case of GV, the gross still seems relative to the percentage. Which again leads me to ask how papering affects the gross, and if the face value of the tickets does go into the weekly reports, since the money is going to the producers, just coming from them as well.