Shubert Ticketing Blog: How many people see more than one new show in a season, which I defined as May in one year to September in the next to allow for those who buy tickets to a new show after the Tony’s. Every new show fights for as large as share as possible of the audience that sees new shows. Ideally the audience that sees new shows would expand but it seems however much it expands it is never enough to keep all producers happy.
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Broadway audiences are such an interesting thing to study. And fortunately, there is ample data available to see the trends of each season, as illustrated by this article. One piece of data that is typically talked about is the amount of theatre-goers that are tourist vs. non-tourists. I think that this demographic is a key to understanding how a show is doing. It’s clear to see the obvious trends like that the more mainstream theatre like The Lion King or Jersey Boys that has a long history of success and follows a fairly standard musical formula tend to be filled with more tourists. This contrasts the trend that more New Yorkers and people who see more than one show a year will attend shows that are Off-Broadway and are more experimental. However, there’s another slot that is a prediction of mine. Hamilton, a show that crosses the megahit format with new methods of storytelling and music, attracts a mix of tourists and those who attend more than one show a season.
I do understand why a tourist going to the big city might opt for their one show to go see the spectacle of the Lion King that they’ve heard so much about rather than take a chance on a newer, more experimental piece. However, I’ve promised myself that I will see some new, experimental, off-Broadway shows next time I can get into the city, rather than just crossing another few plays off my list of Broadway shows I want to see. Being at CMU has really opened my eyes to the importance of new work, just recently I got to attend a workshop of a new musical by the creators of Spring Awakening, and while it will probably be on Broadway at some point, it was almost better to sit in the small actor’s studio and watch it read by fellow students with the creators in the audience. Being in the audience for a new play that is just starting out makes you feel like a part of something that sitting in the Gershwin watching Wicked just can’t. I really want to see Hamilton on Broadway but the people I really envy are the ones who saw it in it’s infancy at the Public and must have known that they were a part of something big.
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