The Economics of Broadway Shows
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The Economics of Broadway Shows
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Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#2Not knowing what makes a hit vs a flop seems... strange.
Familiar actors and stories might help, but also things that are clever and artistically memorable (e.g. Hamilton) have got to help.
I'd also be interested to know how many shows start off-Broadway or off-off-Broadway (100-500 seats and below 100 seats as per this article), and move up to the bigger theatres: test a show in a smaller venue, see if people/critics talk about it, let supply build and keep production costs capped.
Some might argue - especially for musicals - that you can't produce "good" shows without much less in the way of production costs, but I think that could be a fallacy. I've watched enough shows and plays to know when one has good "bones" that could be enhanced with bigger sets, better actors, etc. and which are going to die no matter what you do.
Hamilton would have been getting talked about and supply not meeting demand if it was Lin-Manuel Miranda in a backroom of a bar in a frock coat, a small band and some acting students making up the rest of the cast. The bones are so good on that show - it's clever, musically arresting, compelling story arc, memorable performance from himself - that anybody who would have seen it would have told their friends about it the next day.
Some shows need to be big at the start, but they already have "built-in" audiences: Lion King trades on childhood memories of the film, it's not hard to see why it would be a success.
Spider-Man which the article touches on was always a bit of a gamble: it has built-in audience, but how many people think of the Spider-Man films _fondly_?
Contrast with Back To the Future which I saw premiere in Manchester, UK (the toughest place to test a show in the World perhaps), before lockdown, and it's moved to the West End and I'd predict is going to be huge on Broadway. Great bones, great built-in audience who love revisiting the film and story repeatedly.
Perhaps I'm in the wrong industry, but this seems so, so much easier than software businesses...
Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#3Not knowing what makes a hit vs a flop seems... strange. Familiar actors and stories might help, but also things that are clever and artistically memorable (e.g. Hamilton) have got to help. I'd also be interested to know how many shows start off-Broadway or off-off-Broadway (100-500 seats and below 100 seats as per this article), and move up to the bigger theatres: test a show in a smaller venue, see if people/critic…
Hamilton was workshopped for a very long time and then had a long Off Broadway run at The Public Theatre where additional changes were made. A huge amount of money went into it because of the trust that Lin Manuel had generated with previous work.
Spiderman was in tech for over a year (beta testing) because the damned flying didn't work. Then they radically changed the script because it hadn't been workshopped, and it was still terrible.
I would encourage you to work on a theatrical production some time. I think you'll find a lot of familiar difficulties, including insane schedules, incompetent management, project bloat, abuse and burnout.
Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#4Not knowing what makes a hit vs a flop seems... strange. Familiar actors and stories might help, but also things that are clever and artistically memorable (e.g. Hamilton) have got to help. I'd also be interested to know how many shows start off-Broadway or off-off-Broadway (100-500 seats and below 100 seats as per this article), and move up to the bigger theatres: test a show in a smaller venue, see if people/critic…
Hamilton was workshopped for a very long time and then had a long Off Broadway run at The Public Theatre where additional changes were made. A huge amount of money went into it because of the trust that Lin Manuel had generated with previous work. Spiderman was in tech for over a year (beta testing) because the damned flying didn't work. Then they radically changed the script because it hadn't been workshopped, and i…
> … insane schedules, incompetent management, project bloat, abuse and burnout.
… and as TFA says, financial calamities, and yet, we persist, and we love all of love it, and this art will never die.
Why?
It’s the essence of us.
Story telling is the BIOS of humanity.
Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#5There's a number of these industries that seem to have a lottery-like element to them, where getting a ticket to the big time requires a bunch of things to come together.
Fine-dining restaurants also "need" a chef with a name, a sensible location (though you can do OK many places), and some favorable early reviews.
Hedge funds, my industry, is similar, though the real estate issue is not quite so pressing as for a theater.
Starting your own band is also one of those where there's a big time where there are certain industry standards that you'll have to get familiar with while you work on the actual product.
Common to them all is you have to bring together a certain mix of human capital, experience, and novelty to get the right doors to open. There's always kind of structure that everyone in the industry understands, with its own lingo and skills and important players that everyone knows.
What they also have in common is that you can have very competent people who know how to do stuff that don't strike the gold. Everyone's heard music from highly accomplished musicians who aren't famous.
Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#6Here is two interesting articles from The Economist where they analyse the success of Hamilton[1] and where they see if you could have predicted the success of Hamilton[2] and here is a in depth post on the data and methodology of the model they created and used[3]
[1]https://www.economist.com/business/2016/06/16/no-business-li...
Archive of the first Article https://archive.md/L3xzV
[2]https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2016/06/15/...
Archive of the second Article https://archive.md/oylse
[3]http://www.economist.com/broadway-business
Archive https://archive.md/5HUpH
Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#7As someone who moonlights in the theatre industry (as a theatre photographer), I'm vaguely familiar with the economics of putting on shows - the article is very interesting and tallies with my experience.
However, I do question one line in the article:
> The average income of Broadwaygoers in 2018-19 was $261k — roughly 4x the median household income in the US.
$261k?!? the average income of attendees?!? That's can't be right can it?
Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#8As someone who moonlights in the theatre industry (as a theatre photographer), I'm vaguely familiar with the economics of putting on shows - the article is very interesting and tallies with my experience. However, I do question one line in the article: > The average income of Broadwaygoers in 2018-19 was $261k — roughly 4x the median household income in the US. $261k?!? the average income of attendees?!? That's can't…
if there's a number of ultra-high net worth people there, it would push the average up, by a lot probably. Median income is a more representative number than average, when there would be outliers like that.
Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#9As someone who moonlights in the theatre industry (as a theatre photographer), I'm vaguely familiar with the economics of putting on shows - the article is very interesting and tallies with my experience. However, I do question one line in the article: > The average income of Broadwaygoers in 2018-19 was $261k — roughly 4x the median household income in the US. $261k?!? the average income of attendees?!? That's can't…
if there's a number of ultra-high net worth people there, it would push the average up, by a lot probably. Median income is a more representative number than average, when there would be outliers like that.
Oh of course. I forgot about the difference between median and average!
For the purpose of the point the article was making in that section (about how the efforts to 'make Broadway more affordable and more democratic come up short.', the 'average' income seems particularly useless as a metric to gauge success.
As you point out, the median is a much better metric.
Re: The Economics of Broadway Shows
#10Most U.S. live theater survives only through philanthropy. Broadway’s investor-driven model is a remarkable outlier.