Philadelphia: Canceled final week of Moulin Rouge tour

I received an email from the Kimmel Cultural Campus that the performance of the Moulin Rouge tour in Philadelphia I purchased tickets to is being canceled. They claim it is a scheduling issue with the tour. I think that seems a bit odd. On the Kimmel website, it looks like the entire final week is being canceled. The website says, "Due to scheduling changes with national tour routing, the run of Moulin Rouge! The Musical is now July 5-23. Impacted ticket buyers have been notified by email, will receive reminder phone calls, and will be issued new tickets."

In any event, I don't think tickets were selling that well and I was surprised the tour had booked a full month in the middle of the summer in the first place. Anyway, the email assigned me a new performance and did not offer the option of refund. I suppose you could reach out to Kimmel Center and ask for a refund or a different performance. I understand they probably had a lot of people to contact but I am a little disappointed in how this was handled. I've never seen anything like this before. Maybe it's not as weird as I think?

Here is the email. Is this normally how these things are handled? The "For your convenience" line kind of bothers me.



Due to scheduling changes with national tour routing, the Sunday, July 30, 2023 1:00 PM performance of Moulin Rouge! The Musical has been cancelled.

For your convenience, we have automatically moved your tickets into the Sunday, July 23, 2023 1:00 PM performance. If you had purchased parking or made dinner reservations at Volvér, they will be honored at your new performance date.

No action is required on your end. You will receive confirmation of your seat location and ticket delivery within the next week.

Please contact Patron Services if you have any questions or need assistance.

We appreciate your patience as we work through this process and look forward to seeing you at Moulin Rouge! The Musical.

Positively,
The Kimmel Cultural Campus

Updated On: 6/27/23 at 06:23 PM

I entered the lottery a few days ago and was surprised to see it was going to be here for nearly an entire month. Most shows get a week; two at the most (save for the Hamiltons & Wickeds of the world). I only looked at the first few performances with the discount Pride tickets, but those were selling pretty well.

Does anyone know how tour casts are paid? I would have assumed they’re required to be paid for these dates anyway so it would be worthwhile to have the performances instead of cancelling. It’s not like they can just move the show to another city for a week and go “Surprise! Moulin Rogue for a week in Peoria!”

Now if only we could get them to cancel the Academy of Music altogether. Such a horrible venue for theatre.

The ‘for your convenience’ line does seem odd, because what if that day wasn’t convenient for the OP?

If I lived in Philadelphia and wanted to see Moulin Rouge!, I would be tempted to make a short trip. Has this cancellation happened before?

It’s a striking contrast. Moulin Rouge! played something like nine weeks at the Orpheum in San Francisco, seemed to draw well, although I got rush tickets on a Saturday night. Still, the place was full. But it’s not as easy to go to New York City from San Francisco than from Philadelphia.

RunnyBabbit said: "Most shows get a week; two at the most (save for the Hamiltons & Wickeds of the world)."

I believe they were trying to market it as the next "Hamilton" and "Wicked," but evidently, that strategy has proven unsuccessful. The tour initially included the windmill and elephant set pieces used in the sit-down productions. However, it appears that these elements have been removed from the tour, as evident from recent pictures of the tour set on Instagram.

Bill Snibson said: "I believe it would be considered a “lay off” week and the cast will not be paid. The Producers obviously saw the projected ticket sales and decided it made more sense to not do the final week. Philly is a tricky tour venue, especially for shows that are currently on broadway, since it is easily accessible to NYC."

While Philadelphia is my home touring city, it’s much easier for me to get to NYC for a show. If it comes to seeing Moulin Rouge in NYC or Philly, hands down NYC. If I’m going to with family or friends, I’ll let them decide. For example, my family wanted to see The Lion King so they decided to see it in Philly and not NYC.

The statement from the theatre is well written. You should be able to obtain a full refund.

Thankfully, the theatre avoided the phrase, “we apologize for any inconvenience.”

Take ownership when an apology is written, and say “we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Yeah, it’s just a change to one word.

Several summers ago, our offices were late in distributing payroll by a day to 1000 employees. You better believe I made sure the announcement said “we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Harmonium said: "Week 4 was canceled due to poor sales- nothing else- and certainly not a "scheduling issue". The company now has an unpaid layoff, for which they are receiving per diem only (about $1000)- contractually they are owed nothing since the company was given 4 weeks notice.

The Kimmel's booking people are idiots and the prices have become outrageous. My family stopped subscribing- paying hundreds for good seats only to be sitting next to a lottery ticket winner show after show was infuriating. The greed is uneal.

That doesn't just happen at the Kimmel though. I've sat in lottery seats, rush seats, in amazing locations next to people that I'm sure paid a lot more. What are they supposed to do? What is your solution? They most likely have designated locations, or the winners are put in seats that don't sell.



"Moulin Rouge" did not sell well in LA, San Francisco, or many other markets when out of the subscription weeks. The tour is slowly recouping but it is incredibly expensive to run. The tour is also incompetently produced and managed at every level, which has cost thousands of dollars each month. The producers of "Moulin Rouge" did indeed think they had some sort of mega-hit show and were planning more than one US tour, but those plans were quickly scrapped. Having 10 Tony Awards for a terrible show from an awards ceremony that should never have happened does not sell tickets.

Additionally, the tour is getting a major scenic cut down/cast change in the fall, so it will not be worth seeing anymore (if it ever was). The early cut-down will cost yet more money, and will likely take much of the next booking year to recoup."

Call_me_jorge said: "RunnyBabbit said: "Most shows get a week; two at the most (save for the Hamiltons & Wickeds of the world)."

I believe they were trying to market it as the next "Hamilton" and "Wicked," but evidently, that strategy has proven unsuccessful. The tour initially included the windmill and elephant set pieces used in the sit-down productions. However, it appears that these elements have been removed from the tour, as evident from recent pictures of the tour set on Instagram."

They only use the elephant and windmill pieces if there’s space for them. They’ve been doing that since the beginning.

Harmonium said: "

That doesn't just happen at the Kimmel though. I've sat in lottery seats, rush seats, in amazing locations next to people that I'm sure paid a lot more. What are they supposed to do? What is your solution? They most likely have designated locations, or the winners are put in seats that don't sell"

"

It absolutely does happen at the Kimmel. The solution is to offer a fair, discounted price for a package of shows and make single tickets more expensive. Lottery seats should be fewer and offered to specific kinds of buyers (students, etc) When you operate from a point of greed/dynamic pricing, people wise up and stop subscribing and you have no security of the subscription base from which to operate. Some markets still do this, many do what the Kimmel has done- charge outrageous prices and then try to slash and burn and discount too late for it to matter. This assures, long term, that seats will be empty.


Let's face it- Moulin Rouge in Philadelphia at these prices for 4 weeks in the middle of the summer/height of the rock concert season was a stupid booking from people with no clue. If I'm going to be gouged, I'd rather see Beyonce at the Linc than hear 16 bars of a Beyonce tune with terrible choreography at the Academy."

Please read my post again! I said it doesn't JUST HAPPEN at the Kimmel.

I was a longtime subscriber to the Kimmel Center but when they instituted a minimum $1,000 to keep my subscription seat I was done. Between that and their prices I just go to NYC. And now with all the "shenanigans" going on between the Kimmel Center and the Philly Pops (with plenty of blame for both sides) I would love nothing more than to see the Kimmel go bankrupt and have another organization take it over. As a result I'm absolutely loving their lack of sales right now for Moulin Rouge.

SeanD2 said: "I was a longtime subscriber to the Kimmel Center but when they instituted a minimum $1,000 to keep my subscription seat I was done. Between that and their prices I just go to NYC. And now with all the "shenanigans" going on between the Kimmel Center and the Philly Pops (with plenty of blame for both sides) I would love nothing more than to see the Kimmel go bankrupt and have another organization take it over. As a result I'm absolutely loving their lack of sales right now for Moulin Rouge."

I also decided against renewing my subscription. It’s crazy that they want an $1000 donation for orchestra seats for subscription and then discount these same seats once the season starts. I’ve had to exchanging all my show tix for better seats for same price this season.

Instead, I’ve seen 25 shows on Broadway last year. The sound is just much better when it’s designed for that space.

Philly is my hometown.

it isn’t the first time they’ve cut tours short cause of lack of sales. “Chicago” @ the Academy they cancelled the last 4 shows cause of weak sales - Jerry Springer was Billy.


I’ve done theatre professionally since I was little. Theatre in Philly in the summer, eh always been a hard sell

$1,000 for a subscription?!? Damn. That’s crazy.


just a few of my philly theatre remarks -

I HATE Broadway in the academy. Damn poles around the space. Shows just seem weird there, or get lost on that stage ( wicked I will say fits well into the academy) - academy staff sucks also

I hate the name change for the merriam theatre.
i LOVE the Forrest theatre. I wish they’d use it more.
it reminds me so much like a Broadway theatre, even has that smell.


at least the “company” tour is coming to the Forrest.

The Merriam/Miller needs a serious refurb as it is in pretty poor shape and the refurb that was to happen pre-Covid got scrapped due to lack of funds lost because of Covid. The rename was due to a donor making a donation to hopefully get the refurb done at some point in the future. The seats there are also super uncomfortable in the Balcony and Family Circle because they simply are not wide enough. The Orchestra seating for the most part is good, but the seats in general need a fix.

The Kimmel co-owns the Forrest with the Shuberts, so it's not entirely a Kimmel venue and performances there are all over the place because of the fact it's a co-owned building. So, it's not as cut and dry as everyone here seems to think it is when using the venue.

The Academy is the only theatre that can hold the bigger tours [example: Wicked] because of the backstage space needed for them. I get it's not a popular venue, but it does the trick especially with larger scale tours that come to the area. I do think smaller scale shows would be better suited to the Merriam/Miller or Forrest, but there's clearly a lot of factors involved there. I've also never really had any issues overall there but I've also been going there for basically my whole life and know the venue like the back of my hand.

The $1,000 "donation" thing is really sh*tty, but this also happens in other cities under different names. Doesn't make it right, but Philly isn't the only city who does something like this.

I subscribe, but I have a limited view seat on the extreme sides of the Parquet Circle and don't pay a whole lot and generally enjoy it.

Updated On: 6/29/23 at 11:14 AM