Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 12/17/17

Also, you will find information on each show's historical grosses, cumulative grosses and other statistics on how each show stacked up this week and in the past.

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Up for the week by attendance was: FARINELLI AND THE KING (3.1%), M. BUTTERFLY (2.6%), CATS (1.1%), ANASTASIA (0.8%), HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS (0.3%), ALADDIN (0.2%), THE BOOK OF MORMON (0.2%), COME FROM AWAY (0.1%),

Down for the week by attendance was: THE PARISIAN WOMAN (-13.2%), KINKY BOOTS (-12.7%), BEAUTIFUL (-8.3%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-7.1%), LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS (-7.0%), SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS (-6.6%), JUNK (-6.5%), CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (-5.8%), A BRONX TALE THE MUSICAL (-5.4%), THE CHILDREN (-5.3%), THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (-3.9%), CHICAGO (-3.4%), WAITRESS (-3.2%), MISS SAIGON (-3.1%), SCHOOL OF ROCK (-2.8%), ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (-2.8%), METEOR SHOWER (-2.1%), WICKED (-1.7%), HELLO, DOLLY! (-0.3%), DEAR EVAN HANSEN (-0.1%),

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Any speculation on why Home for the Holidays didn't close yesterday?

And it doesn't look like the reviews or the parade turned Spongebob into a hit.

Updated On: 12/18/17 at 03:26 PM

Glad to see Spongebob get a nice increase.

How could Home For the Holidays lose even more money!?

Was the -$495 for Springsteen just a random comp ticket? lol

I am thinking that Spongebob needs to come up with a brilliant marketing campaign or it is not going to make it. So too with Once On This Island if it is going to return its investment. Re Spongebob, Frozen is just around the corner and, if it is well received, Spongebob will lose unless it is already a hit by that time. Hopefully, I am wrong or they will come up with the marketing campaign. Where is Ed Sullivan when we need him? (I have to admit that I still have no interest in seeing it, but I certainly want any show that gets good reviews to have a chance).

Also, I am absolutely amazed at this point with Come From Away. I liked it when I saw it early in the run, enjoy the cast recording even more, and still did not expect it to 'enter the zeitgeist' along with Evan Hansen last season. You never know. The interesting thing is that I still know people who won't see it because they 'don't want to be reminded of 9/11', despite being told how uplifting it is.

For a week where most shows took a dip, happy to see OOTI making a slight increase over last week. I'm hopeful (and so far the numbers seem to be proving out) that this will continue to follow a very similar word of mouth path to success as Come From Away - which had very similar numbers in its initial weeks and gradually kept growing and growing as more people discovered how incredible of a show it is.

Warbucks2 said: "For a week where most shows took a dip, happy to see OOTI makinga slight increase over last week. I'm hopeful (and so far the numbers seem to be proving out) that this will continue to followa very similar word of mouth path to success as Come From Away - which had very similar numbers in its initial weeks and gradually kept growing and growing as more people discoveredhow incredible of a show it is."

Actually your memory is faulty on this one; much to my surprise, Come From Away sold out from the very first performance and has not had an empty seat since then. You can see this by looking at the box office history for CFA. Sellout from Day 1.

I am actually having a problem thinking of any big musicals in a long, long time that needed time to take off after slow early business, and really went on to became a hit. Even Wicked did better that I remembered. I thought it had a slow build, but looking at its first months, that slow build was in a matter of a couple of weeks after it opened, and the house was always close to filled from the first preview, in a larger theatre.

Looking t the long-run list, there appear to be a limited number that fit the bill, e.g., Smokey Joe's Cafe (big yuck IMO), Grease, Rock of Ages, and The Wiz. An interesting thing to me is that every one of these shows attracted a lot of people who rarely go to the theatre. Also,

-- 1776 may have fit the bill, but it was almost 50 years ago and received pretty much rapturous reviews AND appeared on Ed Sullivan.

-- Man of La Mancha, more than any show ever, probably owes its life to the Ed Sullivan show. I still remember being a 15 year old kid bowled over by the 15 minutes that the Sullivan show provided.



So, maybe Spongebob's marketing campaign has to figure out how to attract people who don't usually go to the theatre??????????????

Jarethan said: "I am thinking that Spongebob needs to come up with a brilliant marketing campaign or it is not going to make it. So too with Once On This Island if it is going to return its investment. Re Spongebob,Frozen is just around the corner and, if it is well received, Spongebob will lose unless it is already a hit by that time."

It'll be interesting to see which shows end up losing audiences to Frozen. I agree that Spongebob will probably see a lot of its family-show audience drift away, and I'm curious to see if it siphons off any of Aladdin's audience as well. I could be totally wrong on this, but I feel like Frozen will have less impact on Anastasia than Mean Girls will - teenage and twentysomething women seem like the main audience for both.

I feel bad laughing at Home for the Holidays, because I'm sure people worked hard on it, but I can't help it at this point! Can't imagine why it's not closed yet - even on a holiday week, do they really think it's financially better to keep it open?

I stopped dead in my tracks on the subway platform Friday night when I saw a woman holding a Home For the Holidays playbill in one hand, and a bag FULL of merch in another hand. I had so many questions.

Right...which could a big reason for it not taking off ...many families can only afford to see one show...at 600 for a family of 4.....for tickets only. I think MOST families would rather shell it out for Frozen rather than Spongebob.



As far as ticket buyers after great reviews: if they are buying tickets after seeing them, they aren't necessarily buying them for the next few weeks...folks have a lot of plans already made this time of the year, so IF there was any sort of bump, it just might not be evident right away.

HBBrock said: "Hogan....how do you know people didn’t buy Spongebob tickets for next week or for January or for the Spring?"

Technically I don't. But I looked at a half dozen Saturday nights Jan-Mar and found a sea of blue dots. (And to be clear, when you say "people" I read that as a significant number of people. Obviously, some bought tickets.) And to be clear about something else, yes they could turn it around but it is going to take a lot of work and some luck (or miracles).

@ACL, I don't think the producers ever suggested that THEY were out of money (none of them are in need of our sympathy). The production, however, was, and would have needed an infusion of cash, which it apparently got from the 100% behind it club.

Warbucks2 said: "For a week where most shows took a dip, happy to see OOTI makinga slight increase over last week. I'm hopeful (and so far the numbers seem to be proving out) that this will continue to followa very similar word of mouth path to success as Come From Away - which had very similar numbers in its initial weeks and gradually kept growing and growing as more people discoveredhow incredible of a show it is."

Jarethan said: "Actually your memory is faulty on this one; much to my surprise, Come From Away sold out from the very first performance and has not had an empty seat since then. You can see this by looking at the box office history for CFA. Sellout from Day 1."

The similarities between Come From Away and Once On This Island's first 5-6 weeks numbers are remarkably close. Out of the gate, each show's Gross % Potential, Ave. Paid and Seat % Sold are all quite similar.