Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 9/22/24

Yikes. Yikes. And more yikes. Summer's over and the fall slump is here. Those numbers for Back to the Future and Water for Elephants are rough and can't be sustainable at all. & Juliet also hitting a rough spot.

Thrilled for Oh, Mary and Outsiders however.

Updated On: 9/24/24 at 01:50 PM

Most shows dropped quite a bit last week, and yet Broadway still is in a better place than during last season’s fall slump.

Cabaret probably won't do this since their entire business model is to (hopefully) have a rotating batch of stars in the lead roles for years, but...they really should have Adam Lambert record a song from the show and release it as its own single. I've heard from many people that they were blown away by his vocals (cuz duh), and this includes folks who saw the show with Eddie and much preferred Adam's performance.

I am personally very intrigued by Adam and Auli'i in these roles, but I just HATED the direction of this revival so much I am loathe to spend any more money on it. Promoting his powerhouse vocals in the role could help sway folks like me to buy tickets. A performance on a morning or late night show could do it too, though its not always easy to convince those bookers to book replacements for an already running bway show.

In other news, I wonder what Water for Elephants is waiting for. I have it on good authority that the Imperial already has another tenant lined up, so I assumed we would have gotten a closing notice by now. They treaded water for a while in the "these grosses are good for a standard musical, but not one this expensive to run" and have now fallen to just plain bad grosses that no musical could ever sustain.

I thought Back to the Future would survive until New Years, but it feels quite dicey to do that now. We are entering into October...I would announce the winter closing now to try and drum up tourist ticket sales (at hopefully high prices). This strategy doesn't pan out for most shows, but I think it actually could for BTTF.

Updated On: 9/24/24 at 02:25 PM

Eek!

If JULIET intends to start stunt-casting or star-casting, they should begin that immediately. I'm sure there are other shows that would love to play the Sondheim this spring.

Any word on timing for BTTF and WATER announcements? SUFFS, perhaps, has a little more leeway before an announcement.

On the plus side...

A surprisingly not-terrible start for HILLS OF CALIFORNIA considering the lack of stars. It's already better than any week PATRIOTS had. That doesn't mean it will be a hit, but some shows would kill to do 500K in previews. OUR TOWN is similarly starting a little better than I expected, but that's a very large cast and I expect there's some front-loading of sales.

The fact The Notebook is still open is beyond comprehension...

W4E has been losing money since the end of June so I believe a closing notice is coming really really soon... also BTTF seems to be done on Broadway, but it'll do well on tour.



I'm concerned about some upcoming new shows this fall/Winter, sales do not seem impressive either

chrishuyen said: "I wonder if BTTF starting their tour early is eating into their Broadway sales. I don't remember the exact timing but I think they announced tour dates fairly soon after Broadway performances started so people may have decided to just wait for the tour to come to them (and outside of the last bit in the finale it doesn't seem like the tour is all that scaled down)"

This is a really good point, but I'm inclined to say the tour is not having a major impact on Broadway sales at a historically slow time of year. It is a show for tourists, tourism is low right now, and general interest in it is softening after a year+ of being on Broadway. The tour will sell like gangbusters.

Updated On: 9/24/24 at 03:01 PM

chrishuyen said: "I wonder if BTTF starting their tour early is eating into their Broadway sales."

From the moment they announced the very early starting date of the tour, I worried about this very thing. They're having an autumn sale and yet they're still playing to almost half empty houses now. The odds of me being able to use my January tickets are getting slimmer with each passing week.

I imagine the producers of Moulin Rouge will be paying even more attention to the numbers this coming week.They took a big hit last week (but still cleared a million) with JoJo out all week (book tour) and Aaron out all weekend. This week Aaron is out 6 shows (baby??). If the numbers don't drop (or if they rise) they will probably be much more comfortable with the cast changes coming soon.

I am pretty new to looking at the numbers and outside of keeping people employed...which is a great thing....is there any logical reason The Notebook is staying open? Are they hoping for an uptick??

Everyone here does realize that at the end of August, The Notebook announced it was planning to close on December 15th, right? Just seems like several people posting here missed that announcement.

Aaron is on tonight and Sunday.



Thanks for the reply, Ermengarde!! I know it is closing in December, but I guess I am just surprised they are bringing in replacements and going for a few more months when things look....bad.

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "singer234 said: "Yeah yikes for a lot of this but I do wonder how Water for Elephants has not announced yet. Smash has clearly been teasing their announcement for weeks and is just waiting on this notice, right? Maybe the producers for W4E are just trying to stick it to them lol. I'd also be annoyed if I were Smash and a show that's clearly dead was keeping me from building momentum, but that's show biz! Lol."

It doesn't work that way.

If a show is selling poorly, the landlord gives the current tenant a closing date (or they mutually agree upon one). The timing of the closing announcement is negotiated between the current tenant (W4E), the future tenant (SMASH), and the landlord (Shubert Org). Whether SMASH announces tomorrow or in 2 weeks or in 2 monthsis not going to have much impact on sales for a Spring 2025 opening. The majority of ticketbuyers aren't buying months ahead."



I know it doesn't work that way-I'm just saying I would be annoyed if I were either party, personally lol. But you are exactly right, and in fact it's probably better for Smash to keep anticipation building.

Getting national companies out is always a battle for shows, hits or otherwise.

If you surveyed most producers, I bet they'd advocate for getting a show out on BTTF's schedule, even if it meant sacrificing a bit of the Broadway revenue. A lot of shows can't get a tour out for 1.5-2 years and sometimes buzz/interest has died by then. The BTTF schedule is easier said than done and only doable because it's a big branded property and started in London first.

THE PRODUCERS producers lamented that maybe opening 2 tours was too ambitious, but the show was hot and they wanted to capitalize on buzz. Both companies lasted about 2 years and made money. MORMON, on the other hand, was smart to open two companies 2012; they ran 4 and 8 years respectively.

HAMILTON opening in Chicago a mere 13 months after opening on Broadway took a massive effort. Opening 3 other companies in 2017, 2018, and 2019 was a gamble and were it not for the pandemic might have proved to be a poor decision.