Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 10/27/24

Holy crap that Sunset jump. Even having an additional 2 performances, that's quite impressive. All the buzz around opening clearly having an effect. Looking forward to seeing how it continues. The press hits have been one after the other, so it's definitely got momentum.

I still say Moulin Rouge is not long for this world with these numbers. It's not like a Hadestown that can drop in just an ok singer into Eurydice to draw in TikTok audiences. The music catalogue is dated as hell and the vocal tracks for Satine and Christian are hard. It may not close in the next few months, but it's not going to be a Broadway staple like other older shows. That is, unless they do something radical and close/re-open it with new music or something.

Wonderful World, Tammy Faye and Maybe Happy Ending are really on death's door already. From reviews from users on here, it doesn't seem as if any are good enough to galvanize word of mouth except Maybe Happy Ending and even then, the reviews are "charming" "such a sweet show" which, as we know is not a money-making word of mouth strategy. The only true word of mouth shows, the sentiment is "you have to see this" and none of these are getting that.

TigerBait88 said: "So confused by the capacity numbers for MAYBE HAPPY ENDING. The first few shows this past week seemed to sell out on Telecharge and at least one of those shows wasn’t on TKTS at all and one of them was taken off of there by two hours before showtime, For the rest of the week, only a handful of tix were showing up as available at all. Nowhere near the 20% being unsold that’s shown here.


Were they holding a ton for rush and those didn’t sell due to sight lines being a big deal for this show? What gives?"

I feel like we were questioning something similar with Once Upon A One More Time last year. The map would be *empty* i mean EMPTY and then 24-36 hours before the show, the house looked completely different. And we all know that show was not packing 'em in...

OhHiii said: "TigerBait88 said: "So confused by the capacity numbers for MAYBE HAPPY ENDING. The first few shows this past week seemed to sell out on Telecharge and at least one of those shows wasn’t on TKTS at all and one of them was taken off of there by two hours before showtime, For the rest of the week, only a handful of tix were showing up as available at all. Nowhere near the 20% being unsold that’s shown here.


Were they holding a ton for rush and those didn’t sell due to sight lines being a big deal for this show? What gives?"

I feel like we were questioning something similar with Once Upon A One More Time last year. The map would be *empty* i mean EMPTY and then 24-36 hours before the show, the house looked completely different. And we all know that show was not packing 'em in..."

I’m not sure that’s what’s happening here though unless I’m mistaken by what you mean. When I looked last week at this week’s ticket maps, they seemed to be about 80% sold on the average and as days went by, the tickets seemed to sell in a normal trickle. I never saw any sort of last minute large dump of tickets (maybe like 6 or so a couple hours out once when I checked) and I was checking the map religiously to see how the show was doing. The availability also seemed to correlate with what was available at TKTS too so nothing seemed odd at the time. Also, I’d think we’d be hearing anecdotal evidence of 1/3 empty houses if this were true. This just doesn’t make any sense to me.

OhHiii said: "They're likely heavily papering, so they may have pulled those tickets farther in advance than typical to help fill the houses in previews. The thing is, once you paper like that, you're not going back."

That seems to be the only explanation. Sigh, just want this show to make it until opening to see if a great night of reviews can give it the boost it needs.

GottaGetAGimmick420 said: "TigerBait88 said: "OhHiii said: "They're likely heavily papering, so they may have pulled those tickets farther in advance than typical to help fill the houses in previews. The thing is, once you paper like that, you're not going back."

That seems to be the only explanation. Sigh, just want this show to make it until opening to see if a great night of reviews can give it the boost it needs."

I didn't realize MHE officially opened on November 12th... That's a long way to go. Maybe they should've kept their original dates? Or have those passed already?"

Those dates have passed already (September 18 previews, October 17 opening).

Is there cause for concern with Six? They haven't announced a new cast yet, their numbers keep dipping. Or is it fine because the show is relatively cheap to run and they've recouped?

I feel it's specifically destined for Stage 4 at New World, in the footsteps of its American brother musical ALTAR BOYZ!

And a McCollum production happens to be on that stage right now...

with the reviews and numbers for left on tenth is it closing early?

ACL2006 said: "A shame that 3 new musicals are already labeled as flops: A Wonderful World, Maybe Happy Ending, & Tammy Faye."

I think MHE still has a chance. The person who does the grosses analysis on r/Broadway agrees with me that MHE seems to be selling decently well but that they obviously papered heavily when advance tix before first preview weren’t selling at all. Word of mouth still continues to be good and a good review from the NYT could get this show to the spring. However, it’s got a long hard fight though in the meantime.

TigerBait88 said: "ACL2006 said: "A shame that 3 new musicals are already labeled as flops: A Wonderful World, Maybe Happy Ending, & Tammy Faye."

I think MHE still has a chance. The person who does the grosses analysis on r/Broadway agrees with me that MHE seems to be selling decently well but that they obviously papered heavily when advance tix before first preview weren’t selling at all.Word of mouth still continues to be good and a good review from the NYT could get this show to the spring. However, it’sgot a long hard fight though in the meantime."

I thought it was confirmed that person is a college student — Ken Davenport did an article about him

Wouldn't these numbers be expected by the MHE producers/investors though? I mean, when your average ticket price is so low and you're apparently papering like crazy, how could they be doing any better? I'm not saying this is a winning strategy or anything, just that given the (self-imposed) constraints, I don't think they're doing too badly. Obviously it can't continue beyond previews, but I don't think anything definitive can be gleaned just yet.