Broadway Box Office Drops 31% To $18 Million During First Week Of New Year As Omicron Surges

deadline.com:

Broadway’s traditional post-holiday January doldrums teamed up with a slate of show closings and a national skyrocketing surge in Omicron cases to send box office tumbling by nearly a third last week.

Combined grosses of $18 million for 27 Broadway productions were down 31% from the previous week’s $26 million.The figure – $18,251,734, to be exact – of box office tallies for the week ending Jan.

9 reflects drops in both attendance and ticket prices. Total attendance for the 27 productions was only 156,986, indicating that nearly 40% of available seats went unfilled.Last week’s box office total compares more favorably – if not hugely – to the anemic $14 million taken by the 22 productions that remained open during the Covid-hit Christmas week.The average ticket price of $116 was off 21% compared to the previous week’s (holiday-inflated) $147.

Prior to the holiday prices, average tickets hovered around the upper-$120s.The $116 average ticket price compares even more starkly to the first week of a pre-Covid 2020, when the average was $135. (Total attendance that week was 317,679, with a combined box office tally of $43,095,641.)Also contributing to the declines was a slimmer roster – the 27-production list compares to the previous week’s 30 – with the early closings of such shows as Waitress and Thoughts of a Colored Man, as well as the planned closing of Freestyle Love Supreme.