I just received a PR notice from the Huntington that with 2 weeks to go, Candide has become the Huntington's highest grossing musical at $1.2 million. It is the second highest grossing show, behind Butley with Nathan Lane in 2003. That provides some insight about the Huntington's patrons and target audience.
It also says something about the theater market in Boston. We don't pretend to have the population or tourist traffic of the Apple, but this shows the difference.
I'm guessing Candide will bring in a record-breaking total of maybe $1.7m for the run of 7 weeks or so. The Huntington probably gets the highest gross per production in town. For comparison, last WEEK's grosses in New York were $1.3m for Spiderman and Book of Mormon, $1.4m for Lion King, and $1.5m for Wicked. These are all up from the previous week, along with Follies at $1.1m and Jersey Boys at $1m.
Average ticket prices are a bit steep in New York, comparable to top seats in Boston: $100 for Spiderman, $105 for Lion King and $111 for Wicked, but $149 for Book of Mormon. At the Huntington, top seats on weekends are about $100, but there are plenty of $65 seats, and good seats for a touring musical at the Wang or Shubert for 3 weeks or so are in the $90 range. The economics of production clearly is different for commercial shows in New York.
Scenemaker
7 October 2011
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