Broadway Box Office Makes Modest Rebound With $17 Million
deadline.comBroadway box office showed some improvement last week, with business for the 19 productions rising 12% from the previous week to a total $16,909,848.
Paid attendance was up a commensurate 9% to 152,557, indicating that about 81% of available seats were filled during the week ending Feb.
6.That’s a noticeable improvement over recent weekends, when percentage of seats filled was topping out about about 75% or less.Likely contributing to the uptick was the ongoing across-the-board Broadway Week 2-for-1 sales promotion, running throughout February.
Another likely factor: MJ, the Michael Jackson musical, opened to generally strong (if occasionally askance) reviews and strong social media support from King of Pop fans.Also up and running on all cylinders was The Music Man, with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, in its final weeks of previews prior to this Thursday’s opening night. (Critics were not invited to the preview performances, a break with Broadway tradition.)Another consideration: The thin roster of shows – 19 in all – might reflect a weeding out of productions that had been playing to lots of empty seats.
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