Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 7/8/18- Page 2

[yesraccoons]

Posted: 7/9/18 at 10:10pm

Kitsune said: "Not a New Yorker, but what's the reason why the week of 4th of July is usually bad for show business? You would think that school is out and there would be lots of families on vacation."

Native New Yorkers leave. Most people don’t go on vacation for the 4th they visit family. Therefore less theater goers. Even if there are more tourists less touristy shows suffer for sure because NYC theater goers are gone. 

[Wick3]

Posted: 7/9/18 at 10:43pm

I agree with others and the performance schedule during 4th of July week is always very odd (shows either add a performance on a Monday or on another weekday afternoon etc.) Heck I thought it was silly for My Fair Lady to have a Wednesday evening performance on 4th of July yet it still did well on its grosses compared to the previous week.

I was thinking about past summers and I recall last summer getting a ticket to DEH was almost impossible. The summer before, people camped out 3-4 days to get a Hamilton cancellation ticket before the original cast left. This season I don't feel there really was a standalone hit show.

[SomethingPeculiar]

Posted: 7/9/18 at 11:06pm

Wick3 said: "I was thinking about past summers and I recall last summer getting a ticket to DEH was almost impossible. The summer before, people camped out 3-4 days to get a Hamilton cancellation ticket before the original cast left. This season I don't feel there really was a standalone hit show."

Harry Potter, Frozen, and Mean Girls? And to a lesser extent Band's Visit and My Fair Lady?
(Though I do see where you're coming from -- as good as those shows' grosses are, they're not cultural AND box office juggernauts like Hamilton and DEH)

[HogansHero]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 12:13am

markypoo said: "HogansHero:

Summer lost approximately $207,000 last week.
And, for eight performances.
That is a horrific drop; by any stretch.
Hopefully the fresh marketing you allude to will kick in as soon as... yesterday - and will have an immediate impact.
Otherwise, I'm contending that this show is in real trouble. "

Summer did not "lose" $207k last week; its gross fell by that amount. It likely MADE $207k for the week. That's the kind of trouble I'd be happy to have a stake in. 

As rehearsed above, this particular frame is always anomalous: people who come to town (or stay in town) don't go to the theatre as they normally would, and that's especially true for the Summer demographic. That drop matters when your show is in peril, but Summer is not in peril. 

[MadsonMelo]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 12:14am

I would say Mean Girls is almost there as well, the show is very expensive and the Wednesday rush is almost like those big shows in their prime days. I mean, people are camping after all.

[AnnieBlack]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 6:12am

Surprised how many seats there are to Hello Dolly next week for Bette's return... 

[bear88]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 7:46am

HogansHero said: "The news of the moment is that Head over Heels is getting a solid headstart in the competition for most clueless producing of the new season, and OOTI is basically in the same rut it was in before the Tonys, just ona slightly different plane: it is a chronic under-performer for its position."

I saw Head Over Heels during its out-of-town tryout, and I enjoyed it despite flaws I hoped would be addressed. But it seems like the show is having a more extreme version of the problem that plagued it in San Francisco. The producers can't get people into the theater to see it. The reactions I've read to its Broadway previews have been predictably mixed. Are the producers just not promoting the musical? HogansHero, what bone-headed mistakes are being made? It seems like there ought to be a larger audience for a likeable, fluffy show like this. I never expected it to be a Broadway smash, but the early results seem brutal.

[greygarden]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 2:06pm

The show that is really struggling at the moment is Frozen. Although its position is disguised by the advance sale and all those people who bought tickets hoping to resell them at greatly inflated prices. Lots of seats are still available at the box office and most performances are awash with seats for resale. For a show of this scale seats should be like gold dust. A lot of people have got badly burned buying extra seats they are now having difficulty selling. This show should have been sold out for a year but in January there is hardly a seat sold for many performances.

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 2:15pm

SomethingPeculiar, why would Lincoln Center Theater want Carousel to close up shop? Are you making some reference to their 1990s production of it, or is something else at play here?

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 2:23pm

^i think its mainly about carousel being a main competitor of my Fair Lady

[Elegance101]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 2:40pm

Maybe a struggling Carousel could mean Dreamgirls in the spring? I know the producers want the Imperial (would be a great homecoming). 

[Solipsist234]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 3:09pm

HogansHero said: "markypoo said: "HogansHero:

Summer lost approximately $207,000 last week.
And, for eight performances.
That is a horrific drop; by any stretch.
Hopefully the fresh marketing you allude to will kick in as soon as... yesterday - and will have an immediate impact.
Otherwise, I'm contending that this show is in real trouble. "

Summer did not "lose" $207k last week; its gross fell by that amount. It likely MADE $207k for the week. That's the kind of trouble I'd be happy to have a stake in.

As rehearsed above, this particular frame is always anomalous: people who come to town (or stay in town) don't go to the theatre as they normally would, and that's especially true for the Summer demographic. That drop matters when your show is in peril, but Summer is not in peril."

Okay, but instead of being ambiguous, could you possibly give us a little leeway to when Summer will actually be in trouble, instead of leaving us hanging?

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 6:45pm

Oh man, that gross for Head Over Heels, DOA call it a day folks or find a stunt cast ASAP! 

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 7:33pm

bear88 said: " The producerscan't get people into the theater to see it. The reactions I've read to its Broadway previewshave been predictably mixed. Are the producers just not promoting the musical?"

I mean, how do you promote anything? Print, TV, radio, and online content + signage/billboards, etc. They could be making more of an effort with online content, though a Broadway.com vlog and a cast with a substantial social media presence doesn't guarantee full houses. There's been a soft push on TV but that might ramp up once the show opens with appearances on the various talk shows. It's a shame the show's opening didn't coincide with a season of Drag Race airing. I haven't seen much in terms of print or visual marketing but that can be costly with no guarantee of returns. It's one thing to advertise a new lead in Waitress or Kinky Boots but you can lose money just plastering your logo out there. I've noticed that more of the recognizable properties (Anastasia, Mean Girls, etc.) seem comfortable with subway ads and that kind of signage early into the run.

I do think it's possible that the audience is just not there for Head Over Heels. Like, if you tell people there's a Pretty Woman musical, they might be interested once they know about it. But if you tell people there's a Go-Gos jukebox musical based on an obscure Elizabethan play, I don't know if you'll move tickets.

[EllieRose2]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 8:27pm

LightsOut90 said: "Oh man, that gross for Head Over Heels, DOA call it a day folks or find a stunt cast ASAP!"

I don't think they have any money for a stunt casting.  

[SomethingPeculiar]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 8:52pm

Call_me_jorge said: "^i think its mainly about carousel being a main competitor of my Fair Lady"


Yes, this –– the 2 "classic musicals" could be impacting each other's business (though one of them is doing quite better than the other)


Are plans to move Dreamgirls still happening, or has that ship sailed?

[MadsonMelo]

Posted: 7/10/18 at 9:12pm

In a recent podcast Casey said that he'll likely have 5 shows next year on Broadway and that Dreamgirls is definitely happening.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 7/11/18 at 1:16am

@bear88 re "bone-headed mistakes" I guess #1 is that they seem to be doing very little to sell the show. I've mentioned it to a few people who should be logical targets for ticket sales and they were shocked to discover it existed. That the marketing is flawed (it seems to suffer from the build it and they will come mentality that afflicts a lot of inexperience producers) seems pretty obvious. The second reason is perhaps more disputed by some, which is that there just isn't that much of an audience for a show with this catalog as its base, and without anything in the nature of a legitimate star. (And it does not help that the WOM on the book is not very good.)

@Solipsist re "trouble" I don't have the specific answer but I didn't think I was being ambiguous: clearly, as with any show, some sustained period of performing under a show's nut is a warning flag of trouble afoot. A show that has made some pretty big money and is still above water when it drops $200k in a week is not drowning. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 7/11/18 at 10:29am

PThespian said: "What is it’s [sic] nut?"

I don't know, but from the curb, clearly it is nowhere near almost $750k.