‘Cats’ Ticket Sales Purring; ‘Motown The Musical’ Hits Sour Note – Broadway Box Office

The new Cats held strong in its second week of Broadway previews, grossing $853,633 and keeping the Street’s total grosses for Week 9 (ending July 24) from wilting more than a couple percentage points in the summer heat. Total ticket sales for the 29 Broadway productions was $26,582,154, a tiny 2% slip from the previous week’s $27M.

Cats, officially opening this Sunday at the Nederlander’s Neil Simon Theatre, was up about $250K with six previews, up two from the previous week, hitting 81% of its ticket potential of $1M. With an average ticket price of $108, Cats‘ 7,911 paying attendees filled 96% of seats. (All numbers provided by the Broadway League).

With the number of Broadway productions down by one – The Crucible was gone – total Broadway attendance for Week 9 was 250,613, a 3% dip – negligible, considering that several of the biggest shows, including Hamilton, The Lion King and The Book of Mormon, returned to the usual eight performances following the previous week’s summer special of nine.

Even with one fewer performance, each of the three powerhouses continued to pull audiences. Hamilton was SRO with 10,754 attendees paying an average ticket price of $190 at Nederlander’s Richard Rodgers, bringing its box office to $2,046,711. The Lion King at the Nederlander’s Minskoff grossed $2,310,911, a near sell-out with 13,453 attendees, and The Book of Mormon, SRO at Jujamcyn’s Eugene O’Neill with 8,743 seats sold, took $1,347,238.

Big loser of the week was Broadway returnee Motown the Musical, announcing an early close of July 31, more than three months ahead of schedule. The production, which began performances at the Nederlander July 12, grossed only 42% of potential last week with $484,334.

In its final week of performances, Shuffle Along at the Shubert Organization’s Music Box grossed $865,912, SRO at 7,800 attendees but generating only about 77% of it gross weekly potential, with an average ticket price of $111. The Humans, in its final week at Second Stage’s Helen Hayes before moving to the Schoenfeld Theatre August 9, took in $554,398, a slight uptick from last week and near SRO with attendance at 4,579.

Aside from the three shows dropping back to eight performances, only a few productions bucked the general upward trend, though most not by much: An Act of God, An American in Paris, Beautiful, Jersey Boys, On Your Feet, Something Rotten! and The Color Purple all saw some summertime lulls.

In all, Broadway’s financial Season to Date take is $245,960,229, up about 12% from last year’s $221M, with total attendance of 2,390,634 up 15% from last year.

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