Broadway Tour Grosses

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 9:38pm

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118004322.html?categoryid=1019&cs=1&query=Road+Grosses

Just thought I'd share. It's AMAZING how much money Wicked makes in one week.

[KirbyCat]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 9:49pm

Wow! I never realized how well tours did!

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 10:18pm

^ Same here. I think that from now on, shows should do Pre-Broadway tours instead of Pre-Broadway try outs. They should just go to like 5 major cities or something like that.

[Pianolin717]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 10:21pm

Wow! I went to Wicked the first and last nights in Norfolk and it was sold out each time, but I didn't know if it would do as well during the week! Nice numbers!

[KirbyCat]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 10:23pm

Well aren't tryouts full scale productions? I mean huge shows can't just pick up and move from city to city as full scale shows! They'd have to scale down the sets and cast and everything else, which would be absolutely pointless...

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 10:31pm

^ The Sweet Charity Revival toured for its try-out. I might have to double check on this, but I think the Original production of Gypsy toured for its try-out as well. Is Jersey Boys closing in Chicago. It doesn't seem to be as hot as all the other shows out there.

[philly03]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 10:39pm

Jekyll & HYDE likewise did their out-of-town tryout at two major cities (Houston & Seattle) (well the first was in Houston 4 years prior as well), and then toured weekly with a full-scale production. Did extremely well and got a huge fanbase -- which certainly helped it stay afloat for it's 4 years on Broadway, considering it got ravaged with horrid reviews and only 4 Tony Nominations (No "Best Musical" - yet was the longest running out of the 5 that year); never made sense to me why they don't tour more often! (But didn't "Happy Days" do this and fail miserably?)

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 10:45pm

It would seem to be tricky to tour a pre-Broadway production, especially an original one. It probably isn't done often because a tryout is to, well, try out stuff, and it would be difficult to that that AND go from city to city as well.

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 10:45pm

Philly 03 I'm not sure if Happy Days was ever Broadway bound. This topic of shows touring for a pre-broadway tryout worthy of a thread on its own.

Updated On: 6/1/09 at 10:45 PM

[musikman]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 12:24am

There was just a commercial on one of the local channels saying that this Wednesday, Jersey Boys will be "welcoming it's 1,000,000th audience member." I never saw the show in NY, but saw it here in February of '08, and even then, it seemed a bit empty to me. Granted, it was a freezing cold weekday night in February.

That being said, I believe the show has somewhat run it's course here.

[winston89]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 12:36pm

I don't think that it is a good idea to have an out of town try out be a tour. I say this because the whole idea of an out of town try out is to get the bugs worked out then move to Broadway. And, as it was said earlier the sets of a tour are scaled down so that they could move from city to city rather then be full size so that it could fit in its Broadway theatre.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 12:48pm

Is Legally Blonde still on Tour?

[winston89]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 12:50pm

Yes. In fact, there was some talk that during its Nashville run Laura Bell Bundy would reprise her role.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 1:24pm

Jersey Boys is still packing them in in Chicago and is staying AT LEAST another six months.

When Wicked played Chicago, it was routinely bringing in more dollars than the Broadway show despite lower ticket prices because the Oriental is so huge. I would assume that explains most of these- road houses are much larger and with a limited run, people flock to see the show while they can.

[philly03]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 1:27pm

"I don't think that it is a good idea to have an out of town try out be a tour. I say this because the whole idea of an out of town try out is to get the bugs worked out then move to Broadway. And, as it was said earlier the sets of a tour are scaled down so that they could move from city to city rather then be full size so that it could fit in its Broadway theatre."


Jekyll & HYDE solved this problem. They had two "work-out-the-bug" major runs at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston for a month-ish, then went up to Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre (or whatever it is called - I'm blanking out on it) for another month-ish; then it toured around the country with the same sets/large ensemble for shy of a year (everywhere from Hershey, PA to Tampa, FLA). As it appears, tours really do get more money weekly, and since the object is to get to Broadway, the producers most likely don't mind that their are minimal profits involved during the tour. J&H had big sets and large props - nothing was scaled down -- I assume tours are scaled down for several reasons, but one is obviously the transportation money they waste...!

But of course, J&H revamped everything and used pretty much nothing from the tour, which shot itself (& it's producers) in the foot, but the show did run for 4 years with tons & tons of fans across the country coming to see the show they loved years ago finally on Broadway after 10 years.

[Fosse76]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 2:21pm

"Same here. I think that from now on, shows should do Pre-Broadway tours instead of Pre-Broadway try outs. They should just go to like 5 major cities or something like that."

You are aware, that those grosses do not include the costs the show incurs. In addition to salaries, unlike their Broadway counterparts, they have to shoulder the costs of load-in and load out, higher cast salaries, and inconsistent houses (a show that's a sell-out in Boise might not even fill the first row in Chicago).

Jekyll & Hyde toured, but from what I remember there seemes to have been a drastic change in set design between the pre-Broadway tour and Broadway. Financially tours are more expensive to operate with a much lower rate of return. As was said above, for a producer it's a better situation than Broadway, since they split the costs with the presenters, so while their profits are lower, they still can make money.

"When Wicked played Chicago, it was routinely bringing in more dollars than the Broadway show despite lower ticket prices because the Oriental is so huge. I would assume that explains most of these- road houses are much larger and with a limited run, people flock to see the show while they can."

But based on ticket prices, there isn't much difference with shows in larger houses on Broadway. Wicked's Chicago grosses weren't much higher in Chicago than on Broadway, despite the Oriental having almost 600 more seats. There are really a lot of factors involved, but many tour stops are so short that they almost have to be full to make money, and since the runs are short, people only have that small window of time.

[dented146]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 5:00pm

I'm not sure it's fair or correct to call Jersey Boys Chicago a tour. It is on tour but the Chicago show is a sit down. The tour numbers have been very high but Chicago just so-so.

[philly03]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 5:39pm

"Jekyll & Hyde toured, but from what I remember there seemes to have been a drastic change in set design between the pre-Broadway tour and Broadway. Financially tours are more expensive to operate with a much lower rate of return. As was said above, for a producer it's a better situation than Broadway, since they split the costs with the presenters, so while their profits are lower, they still can make money. "

J&H's entire team was entirely revamped...meaning all the profits from the tour pretty much went into re-creating the new sets / paying the new creative team members (Director, scenic designer, orchestrator, etc.....); otherwise, I don't see how it wouldn't have been able to pump more money into something that could have made it a hit. Also: it toured until end of Winter '96 I believe, and they did not have the theatre they wanted, and thus waited until that following fall, but that got pushed back & back until April '97. I assume that waiting that long made them re-think some things!

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 10:35pm

^ That was a stupid financial move.