[Mb-hair] Overture, Hit the Lights...

[Jim Burns]

Here's why a Broadway show COULD run for two years, successfully--

And never make its money back.

Let's say you have a musical capitalized at eight milion dollars. That's
about moderate for nowadays. (LITTLE WOMEN was brought in for about $5.8
million, a bigger musial, could cost, say, abouit twelve million, or way
upwards....)

The "capitalization" is just the amount it takes you to get to OPENING
NIGHT.

(Although, the wise producer will have stored within that buget, a
four-to-eight week contingency, to cover one-to-two months of poor, or
slow, ticket sales...)

Let's now say, your WEEKLY RUNNIN COSTS are $400,000.

The four hundred grand is what it costs you to rent your theatre, pay
your actors, your musicians, your tech crew, your union fees, your
advertising, your royalties...

You have to MAKE $40,000 in ticket sales, before ever making a "weekly"
profit--

Which goes to paying off the original eight million dollars.


Let's say you're selling 80% of your tickets, in an average one thousand
seat Broadway house. 

80% would be terrific nowadays.

At an average of $70.00 a ticket--which would be pretty good, bcause it
doesn't take into account the discountd. special advance ticket sales
you've generated with special mailings and other promotions--

You're making about $56,000 a performance.

Or,  $448,000, a week.

YOU ARE ONLY GETTING $48,000 a week towards your original invesment--or
rather, you backers' invesment--of the show's actual budget, $8 million
dollars....

After a year, you'd still be about five-and-a-half million in the hole.

With a relative hit show.

It could take you three-plus years just to BREAK EVEN.

To be sure, the lead producer, or producers, would also be generating
money off tours, and ancillary sales....

But just a quick ilustration, in why Broadway has become an even tougher
business...

Best, Jim Burns