You may have noticed, if you’ve tried to navigate the crowds in Times Square, that New York City‘s star as a tourist destination keeps rising and rising. This boon has been a key factor in Broadway‘s booming box office. True, escalating ticket prices have fueled the Broadway boom, but now attendance is having an impact too.
This past season, measured between May 2018 and May 2019, attendance was up 9.5 percent. Overall grosses rose even faster—up 10.3 percent, leading to the sixth record-breaking year in a row.
In all, 14,768,254 patrons saw Broadway shows last season, for a total box office gross of $1.8 billion, according to figures just released by the Broadway League of producers and theater owners.
Last year, 65.1 million tourists visited New York, making for the ninth consecutive year of growth. And this year, 67.2 million people are expected, according to Christopher Heywood, a spokesman for NYC & Company, the city’s tourism agency, which heavily markets the Great White Way. Tourists—defined as those who live outside the Greater New York area—comprise 63 percent of those who attend Broadway shows, according to the Broadway League.
Victoria Bailey, the executive director of the Theater Development Fund, explains that “the preponderance of stuff from film catalogs is name recognition, so the fear factor is less. People are apprehensive if they don’t know what they’re getting.” Brian Fenty, the chief executive of the ticket-selling mobile app TodayTix, feels that “We now live in an age of dominant titles and consumer spending to back it up.”
Broadway’s diversity is also a draw. There were 72 Broadway shows to choose from over the course of the season, including 38 musicals, 29 plays and five special events—such as Springsteen on Broadway, which brought in $50 million during the season. The most attended show of the season was Wicked, which, playing in Broadway’s biggest house, drew 753,146 people. It was followed by The Lion King, which drew 708,214, Aladdin, at 703,577, Frozen, which drew 671,113, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which drew 671,508.
Another positive sign for Broadway was that there is still room for plays. The array of plays were mostly new and most written by Americans, garnering positive reviews and solid audiences.
Ironically, though, Broadway remains a flop-prone industry; about 70 percent of commercial shows fail financially. Top grossing shows were Hamilton, which grossed $165 million over the season; The Lion King, at $116 million; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, at $105 million, Wicked, at $93 million and Frozen, at $86 million.
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