bdn223 said: "It should benoted that Disney has yet to release Frozen tickets past November compared to Lion King and Aladdin, which are on sale through March. Based on this this summer’s grosses, it seems Disney has successfully turned Frozen into a tourist hit, but the question remains what happens when the number of tourists drop come Fall. The fact that the show has been running several week of/limited time promotions is a bit of concern, but also points to a problem Frozen has faced from the point it opened on Broadway. The curse of high expectations. The show is just Ok, in most of the theater community’s eyes. Its not bad, but not a must see, that yourregular theater goer wouldn’tpay full price for, let alone rave about. As such most people who are regular theater goers know Frozen is a pretty easy ticket to get week of, with great seats available at a discount. The problem is that the public’s eyesnearly everything Disney does is massively successful, causing the general public to infer thatFrozen is just a monster hit on par with Lion King, Hamilton, Book of Mormon, and Dear Evan Hansen. You don’t know how many family members and friends who are not regular theater goers bringup getting tickets to Frozen, but then immediately dismiss it, thinking its too difficult to get. Its likely why their most recent advertising push has heavily focused on “Great Seats Available Now”. The shows reviews had enough pull quotes for Disney to focus on other aspects of the production in their national marketing campaign, but it seems like they fact there are tickets available is the biggest struggle Disney’s marketing team has had on the show after its first summer. I know many may think this is blind optimism, but for Disney this curse of high expectations is a common theme in Disney’s history. Infamously there’s the opening day of Walt Disney Worldbeing empty, and most recently Disneyland’s Star Wars Galaxies Edge expansion that people thought were going to be so massively popular, that they decided to wait for time to pass thinking it would be less crowded, thus causing much lower then expected crowds.Frozen is not Tarzan, nor The Little Mermaid, which were both savaged by critics, it opened to “Its not bad, but its not anamazing must see”. We will see come next month though if Disney has solved this problem, but based on the current ticket block end date, and the highly pinpointed discounts, that doesn’t seem likely.
Also I know people have created the new arbitrary metric of Frozen needing to hit 1,000 performances to be considered a “hit”, but the show has averaged $1.58M a week for its 17 month run at this point. Evenifwe estimated the running costs were at the higher end of the spectrum at $900K a week, the show has profited over $51M, at this point its safe to say Frozen has recouped its investment and then some. Especially since the show opens on the road next month, and Disney has never opened a touring production, let alone announced one before the Broadway production has recouped."
Frozen is going to outlast The Little Mermaid, but I think it would be foolish to dismiss Frozen 2 entirely. However, the tour could benefit more from Frozen 2, especially as the LA premiere occurs just a few weeks after Frozen 2 comes out. If Disney want to close Frozen on Broadway whilst it remains profitable, it would probably do so in the longer term (Patti and Caissie are contracted until February) . The West End version opens in autumn 2020, and Disney may want to keep Frozen on Broadway until it opens there, which would take it to 1000 performances.
