Broadway is ready for a holiday surge, with tourism traditionally picking up around Thanksgiving and continuing through the December holiday season. After a major gain the week previous, last week's grosses more or less held steady, with number-one grosser The Lion King bringing in just $54,008 more than the week prior for a week-winning total of $2,044,902. The rest of the top five was filled out by usual suspects Merrily We Roll Along, Wicked, Hamilton, and MJ The Musical.
We actually saw a drop of just over 7% in cumulative box-office take compared to the week previous, though that can likely be explained by both Harmony and Spamalot opening last week, both with heavily comped performances on either side of opening night. Average paid admission fell slightly to $118.46 from $123.69, as did overall attendance—last week's 29 shows played to 85.79% full houses cumulatively, a drop from 90.58% the week prior.
But that drop is nothing to fret over. All eyes will be on the weeks ahead, with producers hoping for a healthy holiday tourist season to help build up shows to make it through the post-New Year's period, which typically sees a sharp decline in attendance.
Family shows continue to be the best attended, with Wicked, The Lion King, and Aladdin taking the top three spots. New to that top five is the somewhat family-friendly revival of Spamalot, which thanks to playing the high-capacity St. James Theatre, was the fourth best-attended show last week. Even filling just 81.52% of its seats, the Monty Python musical welcomed 10,780 people to its eight performances. Hamilton rounded out the top five with 10,508 people seeing the Tony-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda musical.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
- The Lion King ($2.04 million)
- Merrily We Roll Along
- Wicked
- Hamilton
- MJ The Musical
- Aladdin
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- & Juliet
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- Back to the Future
(10 of 29 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
- Merrily We Roll Along (100%)
- Jaja’s African Hair Braiding
- Hamilton
- Moulin Rouge The Musical
- The Lion King
- I Need That
- Hadestown
- Wicked
- Here Lies Love
- Aladdin
- & Juliet
- The Book of Mormon
- Sweeney Todd
(13 of 29 currently running productions)
