Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 5/18/14 — Page 2

"What if Sara Ramirez did if/then? "

She completely abandoned any and all theater the moment she got her Grey's contract. No thanks.

Gentlemen's Guide was over its capacity, so the only way it can increase their grosses is if discounts start to be taken away.

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Go Beautiful!! Best show this season.

I'd also like to know on what planet 75% of potential gross is underperforming. The show is making a healthy profit with those numbers and it's certainly not a bad number by any stretch of the imagination on a non-holiday week for a show with no stars or built in audience.

Especially since they were only at about 50% of potential gross during the period between Christmas and the Tony nominations announcement.

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Do not forget they have the added luxury of financial safeguards via Roundabout's private assets and charitable support. I don't profess to know any inside info, but I imagine the Board would always be open to using some of reserve for covering losses of their most worthy theatrical ventures as long as it benefited their image and reputation in the community. Between the reviews and the Tony nominations, this show certainly does.

Running costs are about $450,000, which means it's still far from recouping

Really curious where that information comes from... best guess, inside information, or is there a place to find out? Seeing as how Gentleman's Guide has such a tiny cast and orchestra, as well as no complex sets or rights negotiations I wonder where all the expense goes.

Gentleman's Guide has a FANTASTIC social media team, but obviously you wouldn't see that unless you already like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

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I highly doubt A Gentleman's Guide's nut is $450,000. I could see it in being somewhere between $400,000+$425,000, but not $450K. I doubt it head producers, which seem experienced would produce a show with no star, no name, new to Broadway writers, and put it in a house where its nut is over 50% of its maximum gross potential. It would be financial suicide.
And yes $25K makes a huge difference in profitability especially for a show you know will not be a smash hit, just look at Next to Normal as a comparison.

That's why it's a rule of thumb. It doesn't always turn out to be exact, or even near the actual numbers. The reason that it exists is because it's the target for most producers. A producer chooses the theatre (with corresponding rent costs) and prices seats in order to make a profit - obviously I'm only talking about commercial productions. Seats are typically priced in such a way that if a theatre earns around 50% of full priced revenues, the show will break even. Sometimes that number is 40%, sometimes it's 60%, but 50% is the generally accepted approximate average. Why you might ask? A number in that neighborhood means a show will be making money as long as it's a moderate success and producers can discount as long as sales are good and still make a profit. If you require a much higher gross potential percentage to earn a profit, discounting will kill the show and you need to be near capacity every performance, which isn't realistic for most productions. If your required gross percentage is much lower, it likely means artificially-high ticket prices are inflating the overall potential gross and more tickets and ultimately greater revenue will be found by lowering prices.

It's often the case that shows in huge houses (like Follies) are planned by producers to break even at far below 50% since they don't anticipate sellout crowds. On the Town coming into the Lyric will probably follow a similar model (I don't know the financials on it, so I'm just guessing).

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Ok, thank you broadwaydevil. Can you confirm that information comes from a producer?

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