Will Broadway Revive? Highest Year-End Revenue in 3 Years Since the Pandemic

Highest Revenue Since Late 2019
Continued Visits from Overseas Tourists Outside China

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] New York's Broadway, regarded as the epicenter of global performing arts culture, enjoyed a warm year-end with record-breaking revenue since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to reports by The New York Times (NYT) and others on the 4th (local time).

According to the reports, Broadway generated $51.9 million (approximately 66.12 billion KRW) in revenue from a total of 33 performances, including 22 musicals and 11 plays, during the last week of last year (December 26 to January 1). This is the highest since the end of 2019, before the COVID-19 crisis. During this period, 312,878 audience members attended Broadway shows.

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

NYT cited the Broadway League, an association of Broadway producers and theater owners, stating, "While this is not the 27th highest attendance record in history, it is a strong performance compared to the Thanksgiving week when attendance was around 260,000."

In terms of historical records, this ranks third in both audience numbers and revenue, following the last weeks of 2018 ($57.8 million with 378,910 attendees) and 2019 ($55.8 million with 350,714 attendees). However, revenue for the last two weeks of last year was $86.7 million, a 115% increase compared to the previous year, but 12% lower than in 2019.

The strong performance of Broadway at the end of last year was partly due to both Christmas and New Year's Day falling on Sundays. This led to an influx of tourists visiting New York, and 20 productions performed nine shows per week?one more than usual?thanks to the holidays. The average ticket price also rose significantly from $128 four weeks earlier to $166 last week, contributing to the increased revenue.

Among individual shows, the musical The Lion King surpassed Hamilton to set the highest weekly revenue record ever. NYT reported that while Hamilton earned $4 million in a week with eight performances at the end of 2018, The Lion King exceeded this by performing nine shows in a week.

The year-end holiday season is Broadway's peak season. Although many performances were canceled in 2021 due to the spread of the Omicron variant, recovery is gradually underway this year. NYT explained that the musical Chicago also recorded its highest revenue in 26 years during the year-end, indicating a revival across the industry.

Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League, said, "You are seeing us continuously rise and retain audiences," adding, "We have not yet returned to where we were, but we are doing well during this uncertain period." Victoria Bailey, executive director of TDF, which operates the TKTS discount ticket booths, also said, "We had our best week since before COVID."

Although Chinese tourists have not yet returned to New York in large numbers, tourists from other states and countries outside China have been visiting Broadway in large numbers, according to reports. St. Martin said that after the low season in January and February, Broadway plans to present many new productions as usual in March and April.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.