Story of the Week: Why Are Broadway Ticket Prices So High?

Broadway’s high price of admission is a perennial topic of conversation, but the discussion has been kicked into high gear by the recent arrival of three celebrity-driven productions: the revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross (starring Bill Burr, Bob Odenkirk, and newly minted Oscar winner Kieran Culkin), Good Night, and Good Luck (starring George Clooney), and Shakespeare’s Othello (starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal). All three shows are still in previews and their average ticket prices last week were $207.40, $303.75, and $338.83, respectively.

Story of the Week will examine the current trends at the Broadway box office and attempt to answer why people are shelling out hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of dollars for a night at the theater.

But let’s start with the cold hard facts …

Just how expensive are Broadway tickets?

Othello took the crown last week for the highest average paid admission on Broadway (again, $338.83), while the lowest was for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s scorching new family drama, Purpose, at $66.67 (although one suspects this figure is depressed by the number of comps issued during press week in Broadway’s smallest house). The average of all the average paid admissions on Broadway last week was $133.99.

That’s not significantly higher than the $125.27 average price of admission (based on box office statistics) recorded by the Broadway League in its latest demographics report. Although, it should be noted that respondents to the survey reported an average ticket price of $154.70, that higher number is almost certainly due to added fees from ticket vendors, which are not included in the weekly grosses published by the Broadway League.

These are averages, taking into account both the top premium ticket price (Othello at $897) and the cheapest lottery ticket (still Hamilton at $10). Of the 32 currently running Broadway productions, 30 offer rush and lottery tickets for under $50, with Wicked and The Lion King charging slightly more. For the patient and resourceful theatergoer, it is still possible to attend Broadway without breaking the bank.

Of course, it’s also possible to spend a fortune, both at the official box office (the second-highest top premium ticket price is $799 for Glengarry) and especially if you purchase through a reseller: Gothamist is reporting $1,034 tickets to Glengarry on Stubhub—a markup only Ricky Roma could love.

Who can afford that?

The Broadway audience can. According to the Broadway League Demographics Report for the 2023-24 season, the average annual household income for Broadway theatregoers was $276,375, up $5,098 from the previous season, an increase that is actually below the rate of inflation for that time period. Of the respondents, 11.9 percent reported earning over $500,000 annually. I want to offer a note of caution when it comes to these figures: The Demographics Report is based on 16,971 paper and digital questionnaires that were returned by audience members throughout the 2023-24 season, making the people who actually reveal their income to the Broadway League a self-selecting group.

But it’s not hard to believe that there are so many rich butts in Broadway seats. According to UBS, there are an estimated 22 million millionaires living in the United States. Meanwhile, 12.29 million Broadway tickets were sold last season. If every millionaire in the United States wanted to attend a Broadway show, Broadway could accommodate a bit more than half of them—and that’s just millionaires from the United States.

Tourism has largely rebounded from the pandemic, with 64.3 million visitors to New York City last year. That’s down from the high-water mark of 66.6 million in 2019, but officials expect that record to be broken in 2025. While the vast majority are domestic visitors, there were 13 million international arrivals last year, all potential ticket buyers.

The supply of seats is limited, but demand is increasing, a market dynamic that inevitably leads to higher prices. If they seem to be skyrocketing at the moment, competition, especially among elite buyers, is the rocket fuel.

Why do people pay so much for theater tickets?

The politically correct answer to this question would be something about appreciation of the arts, which are priceless—but I’m not going to insult your intelligence.

To understand what’s really driving the price of tickets, we must first grapple with what a Broadway ticket represents in 2025 and how that differs from the 20^th century. While it wasn’t always the case, it is now undeniable that a Broadway ticket is a luxury product, providing its bearer access to the most advanced stagecraft in the world, often with brand-name celebrities above the title.

Like a suit from Savile Row, a Broadway show is the culmination of the efforts of the top craftsmen and women in their field. The actors, musicians, and stagehands of Broadway are paid union wages for their exemplary work, providing a decent lifestyle in a city with one of the highest costs of living in the world. But the cost of labor, while significant, is far from the biggest driver of the price of tickets—especially those eye-watering top premium tickets.

Like a Birkin bag or a Mercedes, a Broadway ticket tells the world something about its owner. It is a marker of status for a mimetic species that spends an inordinate amount of time peering covetously down the block at the Joneses. For that pastime, Broadway offers a range of products.

While a long weekend in New York for a family of four, during which they take in a performance of The Lion King, might be an impressive feat for a Louisville orthodontist, a private equity VP living in the wealthiest city on earth requires something more. That’s where the $897 ticket to Othello comes in. It’s a chance to breathe the same air as A-list Hollywood stars, but more importantly, to Instagram a photo of yourself with the program afterward.

Yes, the producers are selling an experience, but they’re also selling status, a tangible marker of one’s stylish arrival at the 21st-century equivalent of the court of Versailles. This theater of prestige is likely to become even more dramatic as the members of an overcrowded class of elites seek increasingly flamboyant ways to distinguish themselves (for more on elite competition and its corrosive effects on society, I highly recommend the work of Professor Peter Turchin).

Broadway is far from the most egregious offender when it comes to selling live events as status symbols. The average ticket price for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was $3,071—in Indianapolis.

In a market economy, the price is theoretically whatever a consumer is willing to pay. The gap between the top price the producers of Glengarry are charging (again, $799) and the $1,034 price tag at a reseller like Stubhub proves that Broadway tickets are actually underpriced at the box office.

Hand-wringing about ticket prices is mostly a legacy of Broadway’s conception of itself as popular entertainment and a sign of its lingering discomfort with the decidedly elite turn it has taken. I often wonder how long that contradiction will last, but it’s a unique one in the luxury space. Absolutely no one is out there demanding affordable Louboutins for the children.

Will ticket prices ever go down?

Not in the foreseeable future. The only thing that can cool off the climbing prices that result from rising demand is an increase in supply, meaning more seats and more performances. But of the 41 Broadway theaters, all of them have tenants either actively performing or preparing an imminent run. There is a finite amount of space in the houses of these historic theaters, with seats more often removed to make way for immersive design elements than added to drive down the cost of admission. And no one is talking about building a bunch of new Broadway theaters. The supply is fixed, but the demand increases every year. You do the math.

There are two developments that could change this equation, the first being that consumers no longer see Broadway as worth their time and money. If Broadway produces shows that few people want to see starring relatively unknown actors, demand will soften and prices will fall, as we regularly see with the more quixotic shows programed by Broadway’s handful of not-for-profit theaters. But Broadway is mostly a for-profit business, and few producers are eager to burn money for the sake of art.

The second development that could soften demand would be if audiences fear for their safety in midtown. This happened in the ’70s and ’80s, when would-be theatergoers began avoiding seedy Times Square and multiple theaters went dark, forcing landlords to seek alternative tenants (the Times Square Church, current occupant of the Mark Hellinger Theatre, is the most notable artifact of that era). But the statistical trends don’t suggest this is a looming threat (look at those tourism numbers) and anyone who really cares about the long-term health and sustainability of Broadway should not wish for it.

As I predicted at the beginning of the year, ticket prices will continue to rise, and that will render this season’s outrageous top ticket price a hazy memory just a few years from now. We have not nearly begun to approach the limits of what the market will bear.