By Alec Feinsot, Staff Writer
Students are not the only people disappointed about returning to school this autumn season Broadway producers are once again kicking themselves, attempting to think of ways to drum up sales. Once all the kids return to school, the grosses of family shows follow suit. One example of the drastic effect of back to school blues is Matilda the musical. According to PlaybillVault (A major theatre database) Matilda had consistently filled their houses 95-100% for eleven consecutive weeks during the summer months. The month of September they filled between 67-88% of their theatre, a 33% decline.
It is not unusual for a show during this difficult season to raise ticket prices to gain some revenue. One show in particular attempted to raise ticket prices, to no avail. Cinderella which was a family show hit that opened in Spring 2013 had been trudging along since mid-August 2014 according to playbillvault. Cinderella fell under the mid line by September. The mid-line is often recognized as the point where a show fills less than 65% of its house and may have to close its doors. Cinderella had been barely breaking even. Unfortunately the producers made the decision to close the show. The obvious culprit of its grosses plummeting would be the conclusion of summer and the conclusion of families attending their show. Playbill vault.com reports that Cinderella has lost close to 1 million dollars in sales from Mid-Summer to the first weeks of fall. Cinderella will take its final bow on January 03, 2015, so that they will be able to recoup some of their loses during the robust holiday season.
Another musical that has come to the end of its rope is, Once. The hit musical based on the indi-irish film, has succumb to its lack of sales and has made the announcement that nobody want to here. January 2015 will be the final month of performances for Once the musical. After many weeks of decreased ticket sales, the musical wanted to cut their loses before the lose got to large.
Family shows are not the only ones taking the brunt of autumn. Hedwig and The Angry Inch, the cult musical that opened with Hollywood star, Neil Patrick Harris has taken a huge hit. The musical which not only oversold all shows during the summer has lost close to a quarter of a million dollars after Mr. Harris exited the show in Late-Summer.
The one category of shows that are not suffering this brisk fall season are the Best Musical Tony Award Winners. The titles that everyone recognizes would be, The Lion King, Book of Mormon and Kinky Boots. Based on playbillvault.com gross figures show that the three shows have made a combined 15.5 million dollars in September alone! The question in everyone’s mind is, why do these musicals not suffer through the Fall blues? It is usually credited with the fact that people want to spend their hard earned money on a known commodity during this less popular time of year. People begin to shell out money as it gets closer to the holiday months.
All in all, Broadway always gets over the fall hump, but not without a few casualties each season. Some shows that are struggling will stay open during these hard months, and hope they can pick up during the holiday season and make a final decision in the early weeks of the new year.
The Highlander 