Theater News

League of American Theatres and Producers Releases Statistics for Calendar Year 2004

New York City
The League of American Theatres and Producers, Inc. has reported a gross of $748.9 million in New York for the 2004 calendar year, representing a 3.2% rise from the 2003 total of $725.4 million. The number of tickets sold for Broadway shows in 2004 reached 11.3 million, an increase of 230,000 (2.2%) from 2003. Currently, 31 productions are playing in Broadway theaters and more than 20 shows are scheduled to open within the next six months.

Since the 2004-2005 theater season began last June, Broadway has attained $419 million in gross box office sales to date for the 2004-05 season, compared to $422 million at the same point for the 2003-04 season. The League attribues this slight decrease to “an unusual number of one-person shows this season,” which generally have lower ticket prices. “These shows have replaced a handful of musicals, which were running last fall but have since closed.” A total of 18 productions have opened on Broadway since the beginning of the season, compared to 21 for the same period last season. The number of tickets sold has reached 6.32 million for 2004-2005, nearly flat with the 6.34 million sold during the same period in 2003-04.

According to Jed Bernstein, president of the League, “Strong results for the year are partially a result of a dramatic upturn in overseas visitor attendance, with 1.2 million foreign visitors during the 2003-4 season, compared to 650,000 during the previous season. We are quite confident that if the Spring ’05 season performs as well as we expect, the overall 04-’05 theater season will end on a very strong note.”