Broadway Announces Return to Regular Reporting of Weekly Grosses

The Broadway League announced Thursday that it would return to its standard practice of reporting weekly sales totals for individual shows. The change will take place beginning March 22, 2022, which will be the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shut the entire show ecosystem down just over two years ago for that regular feature to return.

“With the optimism that comes as spring approaches and as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, 16 new Broadway productions are preparing to open in March and April and audiences from across the country and around the world are returning to New York. As we move forward into this more ‘normal’ time, Broadway sales figures will be reported on a weekly basis beginning March 22, 2022,” said Charlotte St. Martin, President of The Broadway League.

After being shut down for a year and a half, Broadway returned to performances in the late summer and early fall of 2021. But with restrictions related to mask wearing and vaccination, plus many consumers being wary of attending performances at indoor venues, the re-start of the theatre industry was touch-and-go for many productions. With that in mind, the Broadway League had opted against breaking out its weekly gross information on a show-by-show basis, showing instead aggregate numbers across all shows. The last week to display full show-by-show grosses was that of the week ending March 8, 2020 – just prior to the curtain coming down as the initial rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

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The first three months of the year are typically the low point for Broadway grosses, according to historical data shown by the Broadway League. But looking at non-impacted years, it is easy to see the drop-off in grosses that the reopening of Broadway has been dealing with. The peak week of the year is typically the last week of December, which saw $57.8 million in grosses in 2018 and $55.7 million in 2018. The comparable week ending January 2, 2022 shows a gross of $26.3 million. But after seeing January and February numbers consistently below $20 million per week, numbers have been above that benchmark for three of the last four weeks. The figures are still off from historical norms, but are much closer then they have been at any point in the reopening thus far.

Broadway Announces Return to Regular Reporting of Weekly Grosses

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