Thanks for the info!

Geeeeeze......only 99.7%. What happen to the other 0.3%???? It is the first week ya know....(for those of you that don't know, that was a joke)

Thanks for the info Mr E. I would be most appreciative if you kept that kind of info coming!!!!

0.3% represents 3 unsold tickets, as there are 1000+ seats.
They have only Premium seats ($251.50) available for upcoming shows.


-- Edited by Ray at 04:52, 2007-07-31

-- Edited by Ray at 05:05, 2007-07-31

One show said hello to Broadway last week while three tuners said goodbye -- and summer sales heated up all along the Rialto.

"Grease" ($882,396) was the word at the Brook Atkinson Theater, where the new revival of the popular musical, starring the two winning entrants of reality TV casting skein "Grease: You're the One That I Want," began previews July 24. The show made the top 10 its first time at bat and played to more than 99% capacity.

Meanwhile, three musicals closed Sunday, which brought in big bucks for two of them.

"Grey Gardens" ($677,169) was up more than $140,000, breaking the house record at the Walter Kerr (historically a play house). And "Beauty and the Beast" ($1,041,283) was in the millionaires' club yet again, with the weekly gross down from the prior sesh thanks to comps for closing festivities.

Both "Gardens" and "Beauty" played to essentially full houses. However, another show that closed Sunday, the Roundabout revival of "110 in the Shade" ($361,160), wasn't quite as hot, drawing 90% capacity crowds.

Overall Broadway biz climbed, with most shows up from the previous sesh and total sales boosted $1.1 million to $19.8 million. Including "Beauty" here were five millionaire productions this week, with "Legally Blonde" ($1,006,075) joining "Wicked" ($1,480,955), "The Lion King" ($1,311,914), "Mary Poppins" ($1,233,429) and "Jersey Boys" ($1,212,550).

"Hairspray" ($887,500), still riding the wave of the recently released movie version, was standing room only, while the well-reviewed "Xanadu" ($334,388) was up about $40,000. "Frost/Nixon" ($512,604) rose about $15,000 as its producers announced the show had recouped its $2.5 million capitalization.

A few shows -- including "Monty Python's Spamalot" ($815,370), "A Chorus Line" ($584,581) and "The Drowsy Chaperone" ($561,985) -- were down by negligible sums of less than $1000.

Over at "The Color Purple" ($865,974), though, receipts were off $60,000 due to the vacation of replacement star Fantasia. "The Year of Magical Thinking" ($150,431) slid $30,000 and "Deuce" ($165,085) dropped about $13,000.

From http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117969440.html?categoryid=15&cs=1

Very interesting Mrs. N.

I was wondering if the young actors who get a part can afford to live in New YorK on what they make. Would they make enough to pay back their student loans if they got degrees in drama for example. Of course that assumes the job lasts. An aquaintance is an understudy in a major Broadway show & he gets about $3000 week I think.

Thanks! I knew you'd know.

Keeping this up:

Weekly gross figures for 08/12/07

This Week Gross: $881,953
Last Week Gross: $887,564
Average Ticket: $103.72
Top Ticket: $251.50
Seats Sold: 8,503
Total Seats: 8,576
Performances: 8
This Week %: 99.1%
Last Week %: 99.3%
Diff. %: -0.2%




-- Edited by grannygreaser at 19:42, 2007-08-14

Ray wrote:

---

I like the $882k figure, but I'm not sure what it means.

---

The figure you note is labeled "gross". This means total income for the week. To get a net figure one would have to subtract actual expenses or perhaps a pre-determined percentage designed to amortize the encurred investment debt amount. In either case, regardless of how it is determined, it must be subtracted from the gross. If, after it is subtracted, there is still a balance then that amount is available for whatever purpose the producers wish, e.g., profit, funds for more performances etc.

I don't have them but I am sure that there are some "averages' on record for the costs of production per week of performances. I recall reading somewhere that the average was $550,000-$650,000 per week. I have no idea how accurate that figure might be.

Costs would include salaries and employee benefits, utilities, advertising, insurance, loss of ticket revenue due to comps etc.

It is not very productive to compare one show's gross against another except in a general way. It is more meaningful to obtain a gross per seat figure by dividingthe gross income by the number of seats available. A closer look at the weekly gross chart will show a wide range of seats available in different theaters, differing ticket charges, some variance in the number of performances per week etc., as well as the percentage of seats filled by paying customers.

A thorough cost/gain analysis would include a net per seat both for the week and sometimes for each performance or category of performance, e.g., matinee, evening, weekend, day of the week. etc..

Obviously, handling the finances of a broadway show is more like managing Macy's than running a lemonade stand.

Stan/gramps

 

 

 

-- Edited by gramps3 at 17:46, 2007-08-15

I understand Gross - Expenses = Net. That's not the issue.
I gather that Gross means the total amount of money derived from tickets sold for the particular week being analyzed....say, August 6 thru 12.
If that's correct, or not, what is the amount of money that came in during those same 7 days for future performances? It seems to me that that's the figure that indicates health and survival vs. decline and early closing. Or am I not understanding this at all?

MrE1111,
     Please help me understand something.  Does the $10,000,000 figure represent only the cost of getting a production to the first performance (either the first preview or opening night) or does it also represent all or a portion of the $500,000-$600,000 weekly cost of continuing the show after the first performance?  If it only is the former, maybe David Ian was including the weekly cost when he was quoted as saying the production cost was $30,000,000.

singingdoc - The $10 million was the initial investment in the show. That means that GREASE cost (about) $10 million to mount on Broadway, from paying the actors in rehearsal to paying the designers for their work, reserving the theater, paying for merchandise printing, advertising, etc.

To my knowledge, the running costs are not included in the initial investment. If the show earns more than the running costs each week, the excess becomes profit. If the show doesn't earn more than the running costs, they pay off the debt from the advance ticket sales. If advance ticket sales are poor and there's no money in that bank account, there's no choice but to close the show.

Hello799 - That was just a general example, in case ticket sales slow down to a point where it's not as profitable as it is now. Your math is the right idea (though I still can't say how much the nut is) and a great example for everyone to see.

Yes, it took in less money because of the large amount of comps.

DogsandBirds wrote:

---

There were only 8 performances due to the fact that there was no show on the day they recorded the cast album.

That explains that.  I didn't realize they didn't have a show that day, but it makes sense.

Now this was interesting, at least to me. I suppose their decision to sell SRO tickets has affected sales. But they won't sell those tickets unless the seats are sold out, right? So they are doing well now. We'll see what happens as the months progress. I've prepared the hubby for a possible Spring Break trip to NYC.

Are Advance Ticket Sales published anywhere?  It would be great to know that the "advance" is holding steady (growing :) ). 

Grease, which has been in the limelight since the debut of the reality casting series You're the One That I Want, celebrated its opening week by packing the Brooks Atkinson Theatre past capacity and grossing close to $819,000.

FRONTRUNNERS (By Capacity)
1. Spring Awakening (101.31%)
2. Jersey Boys (100.82%)
3. Grease (100.68%)
4. Wicked (100%)
5. Hairspray (99.75%)

From http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=552030

-- Edited by Mrs N at 20:37, 2007-08-29

I was looking through ticketmaster just for fun tonight and the premium tickets just went up by by 50 dollars. That breaks the $300 mark per ticket. It must be doing well.

Ye-haw! I'm so glad the show is doing so well. I think it will keep doing well because it is such a family friendly show. Thanks for posting the stats Dogs and Birds!

From http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117971299.html?categoryid=15&cs=1

It's starting to look like the revival of "Grease" might actually be the one that Broadway auds want.

Despite the downbeat reviews, "Grease" ($892,270) was up by $73,000 and played to full houses last week, with the average sum paid for each ticket climbing to $103.08.

That's higher than the $102.30 averaged by Rialto top dog "Wicked" ($1,480,508) -- although a distant second to the $125.57 paid on average for "Jersey Boys" ($1,236,877), which stepped up by $55,000 to hit a new box office record for the August Wilson Theater.

Would sound depressing, except I've heard that this week is traditionally bad for Broadway. A look at the numbers on Broadwayworld.com reveals that ALL shows were down this week. Jersey Boys fared the best with only a .1% decline.

Given the way Brooks has his take atypically structured to earn from almost every angle of the show I would guess that the not reporting grosses would have something to do with not publicizing his total or percentage share of the gross.

The production first opened here and Seattle and the media blitz and Brooks dominant presence was almost unbelieveable.  He did everything but take a turn at barrista at Starbucks.


stan/gramps

9/11 guys. With all the memorial ceremonies and most of the show being filled with tourists, they would rather remember 9/11 than see grease which plays 6 nights a week.

9/11 had no effect on attendance this week. It's the same every year. The tourists are gone.

For those of us who wants to keep track

WEEK #1 (7/24-7/29).....$882,396 at 99.7% cap.
WEEK #2 (7/30-8/05).....$887,564 at 99.3% cap.
WEEK #3 (8/06-8/12).....$881,953 at 99.1% cap.
WEEK #4 (8/13-8/19).....$774,206 at 99.7% cap.
WEEK #5 (8/20-8/26).....$818,991 at 100.7% cap.
WEEK #6 (8/27-9/02).....$892,270 at 100.9% cap.
WEEK #7 (9/03-9/09).....$788,021 at 89.0% cap.
WEEK #8 (9/10-9/16).....$756,849 at 86.9% cap.
WEEK #9 (9/17-9/23).....$749,564 at 86.5% cap.

Although the gross is dropping, the thing that I like the most about the numbers is that it doesn't appear that the average ticket sale is dropping more than 2%.

Anyone else have any feedback??????