Steve On Broadway (SOB)

Fall At Broadway's Box Office

Fall At Broadway's Box Office

The week after Labor Day traditionally marks a decline at the box office for many Broadway shows. But this year, the decline was decidedly more pronounced and steeper than a year ago.

Last year at this time, five shows were playing to less than 50% capacity. Compare that to this year where just one show -- The Producers -- is playing to less than 50% capacity and you'd think that all is well on Broadway. But drill down a little deeper on the information and you'll find that in the last week, eight major hit shows have plummeted by 20% or more in capacity from one week to the next (no show dropped by more than 20% last year). The biggest drops came from:

• Hairspray -- dropping a whopping 35% to 52.9% capacity
• Rent -- dropping 26.7% to 54% capacity
• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee -- dropping 26.6% to 68% capacity
• Monty Python's Spamalot -- dropping 25.3% to 75.3% capacity
• The Lion King -- dropping 24.4% to 69.6% capacity
• The Phantom Of The Opera -- dropping 23.2% to 65.9% capacity
• Avenue Q -- dropping 21.7% to 77.1% capacity
• Beauty And The Beast -- dropping 20% to 70.2% capacity

Of these shows, The Phantom Of The Opera and Beauty And The Beast are actually outperforming their box office capacities from one year ago of 59.9% and 52.5%, respectively. During the following week last year, most Broadway shows ultimately enjoyed a week over week rebound. A cursory review of previous years shows a similar box office rebound.

Will the same trend manifest itself this year? Or are the celebrated runs for shows like Hairspray, Rent and The Producers nearly over?

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Labels: Box Office, Broadway, Hairspray, Rent, The Producers

posted by Steve On Broadway (SOB) @ Tuesday, September 12, 2006