Broadway's box office cooled last week, dropping by almost 10% in the final week of Broadway Week's two-for-one ticket deal. That program has kept attendance high in a historically slow period for the Main Stem, but it also expectedly brings average ticket prices down, along with overall grosses. It also bears mentioning that there were two less shows available for people to see last week (Cult of Love and Left on Tenth both closed February 2), which didn't help the cumulative total.
Over the 27 currently running shows, Broadway houses were just under 95% full, but theatregoers paid an average ticket price of just $113.50, down almost $7 from the week before. With Broadway Week finishing up February 9, we can expect that figure to start heading in the other direction when the data for this week's grosses comes in next week.
That lower ticket price led to deceases in all but four shows' grosses compared to the week prior. That small but notable list of shows that eked out a box-office increase even as snow fell on NYC includes Redwood, whose $174,344 uptick can mostly be explained by it having one more performance last week than the one prior. Bringing in a total of $856,602 even before hitting the traditional eight shows-a-week schedule, the Idina Menzel-led musical still looks to be a hot ticket ahead of its February 13 opening night. Cabaret and Romeo and Juliet both also saw increases, the latter taking the top average ticket price on Broadway last week ($156.15) as it heads into its final week of performances (the revival closes February 16).
And then there's Wicked. There are no asterisks. There are no caveats. The long-running musical hit is just continuing to enjoy an astonishingly hot run here, with fans still clamoring to see the stage original after the screen version did similarly well in movie theatres. The Stephen Schwartz-Winnie Holzman musical was the sole member of The $2 Million Club last week, failing to drop at the box office like most other shows and instead seeing a modest $5,000 increase.
It can't be overstated how much of an asset the musical's home, the high-capacity Gershwin Theatre, has become now that fans are so eager to see the stage show. The production carried the third-highest average ticket price on Broadway at $150.88 (consider that compared to All In's average price of $268 the week before last with SNL star and late-night host Jimmy Fallon in the cast) but blew the competition out of the water when it came to overall grosses thanks to selling 15,408 seats. That made Wicked the most-attended show last week, too, beating runner-up Aladdin (in the similarly high capacity New Amsterdam) by more than 2,500 people. Because of this movie, Wicked has been changed for good—at the box office.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
- Wicked ($2.32 million)
- The Lion King
- Gypsy
- Hamilton
- Sunset Boulevard
- Death Becomes Her
- The Outsiders
- MJ The Musical
- All In: Comedy About Love
- Hell's Kitchen
- Aladdin
- Cabaret
- The Great Gatsby
- Romeo and Juliet
(14 of 27 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
- Romeo + Juliet (103.37%)
- The Outsiders (100.5%)
- All In: Comedy About Love (100%)
- Wicked (100%)
- Death Becomes Her
- Hadestown
- Redwood
- Hell's Kitchen
- & Juliet
- Gypsy
- Maybe Happy Ending
- The Book of Mormon
- Cabaret
- Hamilton
- English
- MJ The Musical
- Chicago
- Aladdin
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- Oh, Mary!
- The Lion King
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- Sunset Boulevard
- The Great Gatsby
(24 of 27 currently running productions)
