Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 12/31/17

[Rob]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 4:27pm

Click below to access all the Broadway grosses from all the shows for the week ending 12/31/2017 in BroadwayWorld's grosses section.

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.

Click Here to Visit the Broadway Grosses...

Up for the week by attendance was: LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS (29.4%), BEAUTIFUL (22.8%), CHICAGO (22.2%), SCHOOL OF ROCK (19.9%), THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (19.8%), KINKY BOOTS (19.5%), THE PARISIAN WOMAN (16.7%), CATS (15.8%), MISS SAIGON (12.8%), SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS (12.6%), THE CHILDREN (9.8%), CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (9.0%), A BRONX TALE THE MUSICAL (8.2%), HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS (7.5%), JUNK (7.4%), WAITRESS (6.9%), JOHN LITHGOW: STORIES BY HEART (2.9%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (2.9%), ALADDIN (2.4%), FARINELLI AND THE KING (1.8%), HELLO, DOLLY! (1.4%), THE BOOK OF MORMON (1.2%), METEOR SHOWER (1.0%), ANASTASIA (0.8%), WICKED (0.6%), COME FROM AWAY (0.2%), THE LION KING (0.1%),

Down for the week by attendance was: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (-5.6%),

Click Here to Visit the BroadwayWorld Grosses...

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 4:37pm

Hamilton hits yet another record, and Wicked beat out The Lion King!

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 4:40pm

Man, seeing these numbers really made my day much better.

[Westender2]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 4:41pm

Home For the Holidays made an extra $1338 on last week! Woohoo! LOL

[brdwybound04]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 4:42pm

Damn WICKED!!!! Love that gross!!! Amazing 15 years later, and pre- 2019 film release!! Also, even though I totally despised Charlie... why exactly is it closing with grosses over $2mil?!?!? Spring break and summer vacation are right around the corner...

[bdn223]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 4:53pm

I think the biggest story here is that The Play that Goes Wrong sold over 100% of their gross potential, and it may actually become the first non spectacle/star driven long running running play Broadway has seen in since the 39 Steps and August Osage County. War Horse and Curious Incident are both stage adaptions, and at least in my opinion were more spectacle "unique" theatrical events then traditional plays. 

 I have a friend in the cast who posted that they had their first sold out performance of their entire run last week, and for a show that been running on fumes and word of mouth for the past 9 months I can only imagine the joy its creators and producers must feel. 

Updated On: 1/2/18 at 04:53 PM

[Leaf Coneybear]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 4:56pm

Hooray for The Play That Goes Wrong!

[JBroadway]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:20pm

Wow! What a week! 23 shows made over a million! Gotta love the holiday season. 

Also, forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere, but it seems like this year's January slaughter is really mild this year! Usually we have a whole slew of shows closing in early January, but this time it's just Charlie, Miss Saigon, and a couple of shows ending their limited runs. 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:23pm

completely agreed about THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG. I hope they keep extending it. I wonder if any "name" comedians could jump into the show to boost sales. Pretty much every show did very well, even if most of them did 9 shows that week. Now we'll see what the winter season brings for some of these shows and if they'll survive. And then there's HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. Even during the busiest week of the year, a Christmas show couldn't make money during Christmas break. In fact, for it's entire 8 week run(53 performances), it grossed a total of $481,817. That's pathetic. What's even more sad is that TKTS was very limited in what they had available that week. Most popular shows were either 1.) not on the board like usual 2.) not up for 50% off, but either 30% or 20% 3.) Weren't up on the boards for very long. HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS  was, of course, always available. So even with it's limited selection, people still weren't buying tickets to this show.

[supersam1026]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:24pm

Got to love how Lion King's average ticket price is $228, while it's listed that it's highest ticket was $225!!

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:25pm

Cats is closing too. 

And i think "The Play Goes Wrong" would really benefit from a New World Stages kinda setting. I'm not sure how long they can sustain a big Broadway run, but I'm happy they're doing it. 

[SomethingPeculiar]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:27pm

The economy being better now than in the late 2000s probably minimizes the January slaughter. Also, sometimes shows struggling from the previous season close in early January, but this year most of those have already closed.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:29pm

RippedMan said: "Cats is closing too."

Never heard of it. Is that LaChiusa? 

 

 

(thanks, I forgot about Cats, unsurprisingly) 

 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:37pm

I mean we are losing some big shows! I'm sure they expected Miss Saigon to do better, etc.

[whatdoesntkillme]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:38pm

I feel like this report says more about rising ticket costs than anything. Broadway has always been at its peak around the holidays. This is nothing new. But tickets are getting more and more expensive--and shows are getting less and less economically accessible. 

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:55pm

brdwybound04 said: "Damn WICKED!!!! Love that gross!!! Amazing 15 years later, and pre- 2019 film release!! Also, even though I totally despised Charlie... why exactly is it closing with grosses over $2mil?!?!? Spring break and summer vacation are right around the corner..."

The show is not cheap to run, and from the end of the summer until the holidays they were probably barely scraping by on some weeks and actively losing money on others. I'd be willing to bet a pretty large amount that the advance going forward was pretty bleak, and between Frozen and Cursed Child coming up there was probably little hope of capturing any of those family audiences during the aforementioned spring break or summer.

[bdn223]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 5:59pm

RippedMan said: "Cats is closing too.

And i think "The Play Goes Wrong" would really benefit from a New World Stages kinda setting. I'm not sure how long they can sustain a big Broadway run, but I'm happy they're doing it."

I am sure The Play that Goes Wrongs Producers have looked into an off-broadway transfer, but at this point how much lower can they make their weekly nut. When they had the London cast, and were partially paying for housing their weekly nut was barely $300k. They now have a cast of 13 very green actors I assume most of which are getting tier equity rates. Add to that its not like there is an open theater at New World Stages let alone a 500 seat seat one elsewhere now that Jersey Boys repopened. Add to that they’d have to build a brand new set for safety reasons instead of adapting the Broadway one, making for an expensive transfer.

At this point, if we don’t hear about a star vehicle play desperate for a home by the end of January I’d expect them to extend to at least June. I wonder if the Shuberts can even execute their stop clause to force The Play that Goes wrong out of the Lyceam since its hit its nut every week, even if by a hair. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 6:06pm

Just saying, compared to the West End where it's cheaper to run shows and there are a bunch more theaters, Broadway seems a bit cutthroat. 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 7:01pm

THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG currently has tickets on sale through March 11. At this point if that's going to be their closing date, is it even possible for a new show to come in and open by the Tony cut-off? Are there still shows rumored to be looking for a theater for the Spring?

[Wick3]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 7:17pm

Rob said: " Down for the week by attendance was: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (-5.6%), Click Here to Visit the BroadwayWorld Grosses..."

Just interesting to see Once on This Island's attendance was down 5.6% this week compared to last week (102.3% last week to 96.7% this week.) I tried the lottery twice this past week and both times the lottery was for standing room spots since they stated they were sold out. 

Just thinking more about it, an in-person lottery is a great way to fill up potential empty seats in a theater since the drawing is held 1.5 hours before the show starts.

 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 7:39pm

Wick3 said: "Rob said: " Down for the week by attendance was: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (-5.6%), Click Here to Visit the BroadwayWorld Grosses..."

Just interesting to see Once on This Island's attendance was down 5.6% this week compared to last week (102.3% last week to 96.7% this week.) I tried the lottery twice this past week and both times the lottery was for standing room spots since they stated they were sold out.

Just thinking more about it, an in-person lottery is a great way to fill up potential empty seats in a theater since the drawing is held 1.5 hours before the show starts."

OOTI was the only show in the Broadway box that performed on NYE. I'm not sure how or if that correlates, but perhaps it represented a miscalculation (which would not surprise me in the least, but that's another matter).

[Jarethan]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 7:54pm

AEA AGMA SM said: "brdwybound04 said: "Damn WICKED!!!! Love that gross!!! Amazing 15 years later, and pre- 2019 film release!! Also, even though I totally despised Charlie... why exactly is it closing with grosses over $2mil?!?!? Spring break and summer vacation are right around the corner..."

The show is not cheap to run, and from the end of the summer until the holidays they were probably barely scraping by on some weeks and actively losing money on others. I'd be willing to bet a pretty large amount that the advance going forward was pretty bleak, and betweenFrozenandCursed Childcoming up there was probably little hope of capturing any of those family audiences during the aforementioned spring break or summer."

That's absurd.  Unless I missed a week, their lowest grossing week was over $1.4MM and their average weekly gross was over $1.9MM.  

Now, looking into the future, it is going to be very interesting to see.  As someone who applied for Harry Potter seats and never got to the buying point -- and who now has to register again -- I doubt that Harry Potter is going to impact it negatively.  Pretty much the same thing goes with Frozen.  There will be no seats available for those juggernauts.  

I suspect that negative impact would have been more real if they were not quite the hot tickets that they are, i.e., if you could actually chert tickets for them, Wicked would be hurt.  Instead, Wicked will be in the perfect position to sell plenty of seats to those who want to take their kids 'now', not a year from now.

[GreasedLightning]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 8:06pm

Jarethan said: "AEA AGMA SM said: "brdwybound04 said: "Damn WICKED!!!! Love that gross!!! Amazing 15 years later, and pre- 2019 film release!! Also, even though I totally despised Charlie... why exactly is it closing with grosses over $2mil?!?!? Spring break and summer vacation are right around the corner..."

The show is not cheap to run, and from the end of the summer until the holidays they were probably barely scraping by on some weeks and actively losing money on others. I'd be willing to bet a pretty large amount that the advance going forward was pretty bleak, and betweenFrozenandCursed Childcoming up there was probably little hope of capturing any of those family audiences during the aforementioned spring break or summer."

That's absurd. Unless I missed a week, their lowest grossing week was over $1.4MM and their average weekly gross was over $1.9MM.

Now, looking into the future, it is going to be very interesting to see. As someone who applied for Harry Potter seats and never got to the buying point -- and who now has to register again -- I doubt that Harry Potter is going to impact it negatively. Pretty much the same thing goes with Frozen. There will be no seats available for those juggernauts.

I suspect that negative impact would have been more real if they were not quite the hot tickets that they are, i.e., if you could actually chert tickets for them, Wicked would be hurt. Instead, Wicked will be in the perfect position to sell plenty of seats to those who want to take their kids 'now', not a year from now."

I think AEA was talking about Charlie, not Wicked. 

[chernjam]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 8:41pm

HogansHero said: "Wick3 said: "Rob said: " Down for the week by attendance was: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (-5.6%), Click Here to Visit the BroadwayWorld Grosses..."

Just interesting to see Once on This Island's attendance was down 5.6% this week compared to last week (102.3% last week to 96.7% this week.) I tried the lottery twice this past week and both times the lottery was for standing room spots since they stated they were sold out.

Just thinking more about it, an in-person lottery is a great way to fill up potential empty seats in a theater since the drawing is held 1.5 hours before the show starts."

OOTI was the only show in the Broadway box that performed on NYE. I'm not sure how or if that correlates, but perhaps it represented a miscalculation (which would not surprise me in the least, but that's another matter)."

Was kind of shocked to see that - how OOTI was the only show that went down in attendance.  I'm hoping this doesn't point to bleak days ahead - I do hope to get to see it but probably won't till February (seeing Hamilton in two weeks)

[HogansHero]

Posted: 1/2/18 at 8:48pm

It's a nice show but as we have rehearsed in previous threads, not likely to gain a foothold.