Broadway has record season as ticket revenues double in 10 years

Broadway has record season as ticket revenues double in 10 years

The much-anticipated adaptation of Harper Lee's iconic anti-racism novel 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is the breakout of the season.

Movies and musicals are being advertised at New York’s Broadway. (Pixabay pic)
NEW YORK:
Broadway shows in New York had a record-breaking 2018-2019 season, the theater district said Wednesday, both in attendance and revenues, which have doubled in the last 10 years.

Some 14.7 million people spent US$1.82 billion on tickets to see 38 different shows, with revenue up 7.8% from the year before.

Earnings have nearly doubled in the past decade and more than tripled in the last 20 years.

A statement from The Broadway League notes that the comparison between 2018-2019 and 2017-2018 gets even better when correcting for the fact the 2017-2018 season was 53 weeks instead of 52 – attendance would have been up 9.5% and revenues up 10.3%.

Despite lacking hits as big as 2015-2016’s “Hamilton,” 2016-2017’s “Dear Evan Hansen” or “2017-2018’s “The Band’s Visit,” several shows, such as “Tootsie” and “The Prom” have still done well.

And the much-anticipated adaptation of Harper Lee’s iconic anti-racism novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” was the breakout of the season.

After a jump last year, overall ticket prices remained fairly stable, with an average cost of US$123.87, a 0.6% increase.

But this stability masks a strong disparity between the price of tickets for musicals, which were down by 2.3%, and the price of tickets for plays, which saw a sharp rise of 30%.

That was partly due to the effect of tickets for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which in some cases sold for as much as US$499.

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