Broadway Box Office Plummets After Spectacular Summer

While Hollywood had one of the worst summers in recent memory, Broadway's had its best. But like all good runs, this too must end.

As tourists dried up and locals returned to the grind, sales plummeted 15% on the Rialto this week, down to a six-month low of $23.67 million. It's still, barely, a record for the frame, but it does signal the end of an era.


Buoyed by a combination of new hits, long-running tourist magnets, and a crowded season, Broadway has had an extraordinary record-breaking year. For 30 weeks straight, 2017's grosses have eclipsed the high water marks of the past, often by as much as 20%.

When Hamilton was poised to sweep the 2016 Tony Awards (which it did), many producers scuttled their plans and pushed back opening dates to avoid competing with the behemoth. This led to a glut of new properties cannibalizing each other over the last six months. For most of the summer, Broadway had five additional occupied theaters over the year prior,  boosting the biz's overall box office while setting the stage for a Labor Day crash.


Hamilton also contributed directly to the numbers. With sky-high premium pricing (the top seat is now listed at $849), it had an unprecedented eight-week streak of $3 million-plus grosses, accounting for almost 10% of the entire industry's sales at certain points. These prices paved the way for other shows to increase as well: Hello, Dolly! goes for $748, Dear Evan Hansen $448, and Book Of Mormon, which started the trend in 2011 - still at $477.

But the trickle only extended so far, and the inflation contributed to this week's crash. The vast majority of shows can't charge those kinds of prices without losing vast chunks of potential buyers, so they're left fighting each other for smaller pieces of pie, hamstrung by a lack of cultural currency. They also don't have the branding power of Disney, or the industrial clout of a Scott Rudin or Jeffrey Seller behind them to saturate airwaves with marketing dollars.

By the end of September, eight open-ended shows will have shuttered, with a few more likely to follow before year's end - War Paint and Miss Saigon both need a serious pick-me-up. The shows that survived either have built-in audiences (Anastasia) or became a cultural touchstone (Dear Evan Hansen). A rising tide does not lift all boats.

As for this week's big downturn, Bette Midler was a chief culprit. Though Hello, Dolly! was still the eighth highest-grossing show at $913,000, Midler's planned vacation cost the show a whopping $1.36 million in sales.

Almost every other show posted sizable losses, with tourist faves The Lion King, Wicked, School Of Rock and Aladdin all falling more than $200,000 each. Oddly, the revival of Cats and A Bronx Tale, neither of which have been box office heavyweights, both saw decent five figure boosts - but they were the only good news on the boards.

The biz also suffered the loss of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, which closed last week after a racially-charged controversy spurred its untimely end. Despite the blowback, the show was still grossing over $1 million most weeks.

It raises another question about the musical, which is now coming under scrutiny. A number of investors and co-producers are planning to request an audit. They're asking how a show that grossed, on average, 92% of its potential box office, crashed so spectacularly, and only returned 15% of its capital.  Even at its lowest point, it was breaking even, according to investment documents, which place its weekly running costs just north of $700,000.

Shows often cost more in real life than on paper, especially during an awards season. Sources close to the show said the true cost was closer to $800,000 per week. But even then it was still in the black for much of its run. The casting controversy may have derailed it, but the numbers point to serious financial mismanagement.