Hooray for holidays! Broadway continued to see a very busy holiday week with New Year's Eve and New Year's Day last week. If grosses didn't quite meet the truly wild $55.8 million bar from Christmas week, it's hard to imagine anyone being disappointed with last week's $45.2 million. Apparently most of that change is because of ticket prices. Overall attendance fell by just a little over 5%, but the average ticket price fell to $155.37 from the week prior's $182.32. That's more an expression of how stratospheric Christmas week's tickets were than it is anything bad about New Year's week. Theatres were also pretty full of theatregoers welcoming in the new year, sitting at 95% capacity across the 33 currently running shows.
Not much changed show to show. Wicked is continuing to be a box-office darling, even as this week saw that ever-popular film version become available in people's homes for the first time. The show brought in $3.3 million, capping off a truly astonishing holiday fortnight. It costs $20 to get a digital rental of the film version, but theatregoers paid an average ticket price of $213.80 to see the whole story live on stage last week.
After usual suspects The Lion King, Hamilton, and Aladdin, the number five spot swapped out The Great Gatsby for The Outsiders. The latter beat out the former by just under $2,500, and that's even with Gatsby still beating the Broadway Theatre's house record for an eight-performance week with its seven New Year's week performances.
Gypsy predictably saw a six-figure increase last week, having played a full eight performances after cancelling all but one the week prior. Coming in at $1.8 million, the 10th highest on the Main Stem, the Audra McDonald-led revival is reminding us that it's only off the list of top grossers when it's not performing. Let's hope we don't see a repeat of that any time soon.
Suffs also saw a nice increase for its final week on the boards, playing its last performances to the highest grosses of its run, namely $1.34 million. And it was standing-room-only at the Music Box, with 101.8% of seats filled. If that means you couldn't get in, you're in luck: It should be airing on PBS before long.
As has been the case week after week, Broadway seems to really be hitting its stride. Only six shows played to less-than-90%-full houses last week. The grosses beat the same week last year (which notably did not include New Year's Eve in 2023) by more than 50%. But most interesting there might be that 2023's New Year's week also played to mostly full houses. The difference is theatregoers had 26 shows to choose from last year, and 33 shows this year. That more shows only meant more attendance and more money is fantastic news.
The bad part is a drastic drop is likely when this week's numbers are revealed next week. But then a holiday bonanza isn't a holiday bonanza if it keeps going forever. A sleepy box office is also an excellent time for New York-based theatregoers to catch any shows they've missed on a well-priced ticket—Broadway Week's two-for-one tickets are already on sale, if you're so inclined.
But let this officially be the moment to enjoy that Broadway is fully back after years of post-pandemic wonkiness. This New Year's week was the highest-grossing on the Main Stem since 2017, and that's really something to celebrate.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
- Wicked ($3.3 million)
- The Lion King ($2.8 million)
- Hamilton ($2.4 million)
- Aladdin ($2 million)
- The Outsiders
- The Great Gatsby
- Back to the Future
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- MJ The Musical
- Gypsy
- Sunset Boulevard
- All In: Comedy About Love
- Cabaret
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- Suffs
- Oh, Mary!
- & Juliet
- Romeo and Juliet
- Death Becomes Her
- Elf
- Hell's Kitchen
- The Book of Mormon
- SIX: The Musical
- Hadestown
- Chicago
(25 of 33 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
- Romeo and Juliet (103.16%)
- The Outsiders (102.39%)
- Back to the Future (102%)
- Suffs (101.79%)
- Hamilton (101.33%)
- Hadestown (101.29%)
- & Juliet (100.38%)
- All In: Comedy About Love (100%)
- The Great Gatsby (100%)
- Oh, Mary! (100%)
- Stereophonic (100%)
- Wicked (100%)
- The Book of Mormon
- Cabaret
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- The Lion King
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- Aladdin
- Maybe Happy Ending
- SIX: The Musical
- Gypsy
- Sunset Boulevard
- Death Becomes Her
- Hell's Kitchen
- MJ The Musical
- English
- Our Town
(27 of 33 currently running productions)
