How much money do investors give? — Page 2

Liza's Headband said: "QueenAlice said: "Honestly, I think most people who invest in Broadway shows do it because they like being able to tell their friends they are involved with a Broadway show, they like being able to attend opening night, have access to house seats etc. For those with disposable income, it's like membership to a fun club - for however long it lasts. I've never heard of anyone investing in a Broadway show because they thought they would make money from it. And as has been pointed out - things like HELLO DOLLY and HAMILTON usually have very limited investor opportunities because (I believe) lead producers like to use those "more likely to succeed"projects to reward people who have been long time investorson other projects."



Wildly inaccurate generalizations are always fun!"

QueenAlice is actually pretty dead on accurate. Of all the investors I know, any one who expected to make big money learns pretty fast that is not the norm on Broadway. The key to happy investing is treating this as fun money. Sure you could walk into a casino one day with $100 and walk out with $10,000 in winnings, but that doesn't mean it'll happen every time. Sure, your first investment could be Wicked, but very few shows have returns anywhere near Wicked's numbers let alone recoup. Plus, when you are a new investor, unless you have deep pockets and big connections, coming in as a novice you will likely end up investing on shows that are struggling to raise capital. Sometimes that works out. GGLAM is one good struggle-to-success example, but most of the time it's a loss.

The long-lasting investors I know spread around their investments to minimize risk as much as possible. Put a little in several shows each season and maybe MAYBE one will eventually hit and offset losses on the others.

Regarding "saving good shows to reward loyal investors." TOTALLY TRUE. A big chunk of the chosen investors who got in on Hamilton LOST money on that Sting musical Last Ship, which Jeffrey Seller produced as well.

Speaking of investors, and fiascos - does anyone recall the Barbara Walters debacle back in 1993-94 with 'Sunset Boulevard' ?



First, Walters did her pre-Oscar show 'live from the stage of LA's Shubert Theater on the set of Sunset Boulevard' in March, 1994...which was broadcast into nearly 20% of American homes which tuned into the special - one of the highest rated shows of the 1993-94 season. She didn't tell audiences she had a personal investment of $100,000 in the production which was headed to Broadway at the end of the year.

Later on December 13, 1994 she did lengthy segment interview with ALW on "20/20" on ABC. It was a thinly veiled infomercial for 'Sunset Boulevard' and other ALW musicals running on Broadway and London at the time. She never ever mentioned she was a personal investor in the show, though she did mention Disney (the coroporate parent of ABC) had invested in past ALW musicals, and had produced "Evita". She clarified, "But that's not why we did this piece". to assure the audience there was no conflict of interest.

However, Walters never disclosed to the network or the audience that she had a hefty (at the time) stake in the production. It was finally discovered by none other than Michael Reidel for the "Daily News" some two months later. ABC had to issue an apology, while Walters dismissed it as 'an oversight' and nothing more.

Later, it was disclosed that ABC would probably not have interviewed ALW had they known she was a personal investor in 'Sunset'. In the end, Walters lost 15% of her investment as the show only recouped 85% back.

Updated On: 10/21/17 at 07:03 PM

Every production is produced as a separate LLC with its own investor pool. Sometimes the original investor pool (especially front money investors) share in a small percentage of the profit from future productions but it completely depends on what terms the producers offer at the time of initial signing. There isn’t a set rule on this. I know someone who was an investor on Wicked and then reinvested their return in subsequent tours and international companies and of course has made out very well. But they had to reinvest in those other companies- it wasn’t automatic.

There are a lot of little old ladies out there.

HogansHero said: "There is a great deal of incorrect or incomplete information in these recent posts. Not unusual, and I am not in the mood to correct it, but I don't want folks relying on anything they read. It really would be nice if people would not post info when they don't know what they are talking about."



^ This.

HogansHero said: "...It really would be nice if people would not post info when they don't know what they are talking about."

Only rarely do people know what they don't know.

Since you can't be bothered to provide a correction, I don't think you have any right to complain.