Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 11/1/15- Page 2

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 5:10pm

Call_me_jorge said: "Is the money the show makes from the lottery included on the grosses?"

 

Yes.

 

"Also how much higher would grosses be if it included sales of souvenirs?"

 

They would go up by the amount of merch they sold that week.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 5:12pm

Wait, is that true? Is the merch included in the gross? That never occurred to me. 

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 5:13pm

JBroadway said: "Wait, is that true? Is the merch included in the gross? That never occurred to me."

 

I don't believe it is, hence the speculation of how much higher the grosses would be if they were included.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 5:17pm

Oh, sorry I didn't read the posts carefully enough. Didn't catch the "if" and "would." gotcha. 

Updated On: 11/2/15 at 05:17 PM

[Jakeevan942]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 5:23pm

Alfie Boe was on vacation from Les Miserables last week. Not sure how big a draw he's been, but that might have something to do with the massive drop. Yesterday they had to go to split track mode because of how many principals were out of the show

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 5:24pm

Les Miz definitely needs to go into hibernation for 15/20 years after this revival closes before the next one is unleashed.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 5:42pm

I saw Something Rotten this week. I still saw plenty of shows. They just didn't count in the Broadway grosses (off Broadway/opera). I'm not surprised exactly but I guess disappointed that the Halloween discounts didn't help put butts in seats if not actually improve the grosses.

[Sunny11]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 5:53pm

Maybe Something Rotten discounting orchestra seats to $ 31 was too extreme a discount that hurt grosses ? 

[KCW]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 6:08pm

I think that the heavy discount was more for publicity and word of mouth fuel. Marketing must have ran the numbers, weighed the pros and cons and came to find that it was a good idea.

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 6:12pm

Empty seats would have hurt the grosses more, no?

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 6:14pm

Jakee...would you please explain the meaning of "split track mode"?

[Jakeevan942]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 6:17pm

https://twitter.com/SiriHoward/status/661085254262857728

This is the in/out list from the show yesterday-The list that the stage management distribute so everyone know which understudies/swings are on. There were so many understudies on yesterday that one swing had to cover 2 ensemble tracks, hitting the important moments of each track.

If you want to know more stuff like this, follow @Understudies on twitter

[sorano916]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 6:18pm

Patti LuPone FANatic said: "Jakee...would you please explain the meaning of "split track mode"?"

 

Clearly not Jakee, but I'll answer your question: A split track is when a swing or ensemble goes & does two (or more) different tracks/roles and it sometimes means a track/role is eliminated during a scene or so. 

 

You can see Les Mis' Sunday night's cast here and note the split track: https://twitter.com/SiriHoward/status/661085254262857728

 

 

Updated On: 11/2/15 at 06:18 PM

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 6:30pm

Jakeevan942 said: "https://twitter.com/SiriHoward/status/661085254262857728

 

This is the in/out list from the show yesterday-The list that the stage management distribute so everyone know which understudies/swings are on. There were so many understudies on yesterday that one swing had to cover 2 ensemble tracks, hitting the important moments of each track.

 

If you want to know more stuff like this, follow @Understudies on twitter"

 

That is an INCREDIBLE number of understudies for one performance. I've never seen so many at once.

[asmith0307]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 7:50pm

BroadwayConcierge said: "Jakeevan942 said: "https://twitter.com/SiriHoward/status/661085254262857728

 

 

 

This is the in/out list from the show yesterday-The list that the stage management distribute so everyone know which understudies/swings are on. There were so many understudies on yesterday that one swing had to cover 2 ensemble tracks, hitting the important moments of each track.

 

 

 

If you want to know more stuff like this, follow @Understudies on twitter"

 

 

 

That is an INCREDIBLE number of understudies for one performance. I've never seen so many at once."

I saw the show the Monday before the 4th of July... I'm sure it was probably close to what that looked like. You know its bad when they have to print alternative cast lists (and its not Newsies where everyone seemed to cover everyone else)

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 9:17pm

WTF?  I saw "Ain't Misbehavin'" back in the day with two of the three original women out (infamously) but this comes close to topping it.

[bfreak]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 9:21pm

It's interesting to me why Hamilton prints out cast sheets for the respective performance each day even if there aren't any understudies. When you see a huge slip like that you think there are a million understudies but usually that's not the case.

[fallingawake]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 9:22pm

There certainly was a lot of other events going on this week, but it's pretty interesting that total sales isn't too far off the same week the last two years and even the last five judging by the bigger graph (excluding the Sandy downfall of '12).  I'm guessing it's a yearly drop because of Halloween parties (as even if it's during the week, parties are on the weekend, etc)?

[ACL2006]

Posted: 11/2/15 at 10:54pm

majority of shows were offering large discounts for the weekend, too. Doesn't seem like many people took advantage of it.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 11/3/15 at 9:03am

Clearly a bad week for everyone but the lowest grosses are the shows that have been suffering over multiple weeks. So no one should be surprised.

[bdn223]

Posted: 11/3/15 at 11:26am

Not much should be looked into this past weeks grosses except for the bright spots as every producer and their accountant new this past weekend was going to be a blood bath for the following reasons:

 

1) Halloween fell on a Saturday- Halloween is a party holiday where people go out and not to the theater. This is why Wicked always does a 100 seat lottery on Halloween because not only is it its birthday, but its also a poor day for sales overall. This was easily seen by every not SRO only show pushing massive discounts last week like the $31 orchestra for Something Rotten, or Fun Homes' "Great Seats Available Oct-27th-Nov1st." And since Halloween fell on a Saturday it effected the 3 top selling performances of the week, both the Saturday Mantinee (Performance 1) and Evening (Performance 2), and then also Friday night (Performance 3) as many people had Halloween parties on Friday night as well.

 

2)NYC Marathon- This normally has a slight effect on the box office because the tourist crowd last weekend was not your usual tourist crowd it who would likely spend at least one night at a show. Instead the crowd was constantly preping for Sunday's race. For those who don't think this is true, as someone who works in on the South East Corner of Central Park I can attest that it was a grid lock of runners all week. Normally when the tourism is down in Fall and Winter producers rely on the Bridge and Tunnel crowd.The problem is that no one in their right state of mind would come into the city during the Marathon thus hurting grosses for the Sunday Matinee ((Performance 4) and Sunday Evening (Performance 5) for the following shows:

• Aladdin
• Chicago
• Les Mis
• The Lion King
• Spring Awakening
• Sylvia
• Wicked

 

3) On top of that the Mets being in the World Series definitly played some effect on the box office. Now normally the world series would have minimal effect, but the Mets were the home town underdogs so many non sports fan New Yorkers watched taking away from the potential audience again. 

There 3 factors created the perfect storm for shows grossed to sink to outragiously low levels, so we shouldn't look so much into the bottom of the pack, but instead look at the shows that were able to rise above the trend showing their prowess:

 

 

Clearly Hamilton is the big winner here, bucking the trend, showing that despite minimal advertising the show is stil riding its early buzz where people will do anything to get to see it. This is especially true when compared to the other SRO's like Lion King, Wicked or Book of Mormon, where you can't watch daytime or late night tv without seeing umteen comercials for one of those shows. 

• I think we can finally add Aladdin to the list of big dog long running productions with Wicked, The Lion King, and The Book or Mormon, as the show stil managed 96% capactiy in the 3rd largest barn on Broadway in one of the toughest weeks of the year.
• Fun Home's producers seem to understand dynamic pricing as it still played to 95% capacity despite being down $170K.
• Misery looks good, and on its way to recoupment unless Bruce Wills is being grossly overpaid. Yes its not selling out by $900K for a two person play is nothing to laugh at.
• On Your Feet! defintly looks like it is gaining momentum and might be the new Mamma Mia! as $900K is great for a musical with no names during previews. It looks like its on a similar tragectory as Motown, only it might not open to universal pans, and I am sure the Estefans are not double diping in royalties and asking an exorbitant amount to the point where the show can't sustain itself with grosses under a million dollars.
• The Gin Game looks like it might actually recoup.

Updated On: 11/3/15 at 11:26 AM

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 11/3/15 at 11:35am

"The Gin Game looks like it might actually recoup."

Unless it's an extremely low capitalization, I wouldn't be so sure of that.

[CukorLover]

Posted: 11/3/15 at 11:42am

bdn223 said: "Not much should be looked into this past weeks grosses except for the bright spots as every producer and their accountant new this past weekend was going to be a blood bath for the following reasons:

On Your Feet! defintly looks like it is gaining momentum and might be the new Mamma Mia! as $900K is great for a musical with no names during previews. It looks like its on a similar tragectory as Motown, only it might not open to universal pans, and I am sure the Estefans are not double diping in royalties and asking an exorbitant amount to the point where the show can't sustain itself with grosses under a million dollars.

 

I wouldn't be anointing it the new MAMA MIA just yet. Two very different animals and audiences. True, its doing  very well out of the gate, but they've promoted heavily in the Latino marketplace. Lets see how it does in six months and if the figures hold up that large. Winter and discounting will play a big part in recouping a 18 million dollar musical with no stars. That huge figure is due mostly in part to the royalty pool and Estefan machine. Only time will tell.

 

 

 

Updated On: 11/3/15 at 11:42 AM

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 11/3/15 at 11:46am

The first time I saw those full cast list slips was when I was working the last West Side Story revival. After the Tony's there was a high amount of injuries and absenteeism. They got so tired of having to put in 5-10 slips every day they just started printing the sheets for every show, even if it was just one understudy or swing on. That show at one point had to add an extra understudy board! To be fair that was mostly because of how the understudy and swing system was set up. If, say, Action was out, the actor who normally played Deisel moves up to action, The Snowboy plays Deisel, etc etc etc.

[MarkBearSF]

Posted: 11/3/15 at 12:00pm

It seems Sylvia hasn't caught fire. I know there are only four cast members, But I'd imagine Matthew Broderick is getting paid well, and Laurie Metcalf and Annaleigh Ashford are probably not being paid scale.

Has it likely made money any week yet?  Checking their website, it looks like a limited run until late January. I'd imagine a likelier scenario would be for the producers to cut their losses after the holidays and close on New Years.

Surprised that I've not seen "look at those numbers" talk about the show.