The end of the 3rd quarter is my favorite.  First, it means that spring is around the corner.  And second, it signifies the beginning of our “kick” toward the end of the year.

Will we top last year’s results?  Will we take a step back?  How will this year’s crop of spring shows affect the bottom lines?

The 3rd quarter officially ended this year with week #39, so forgive me for this tardy analysis (there was a lot of newsy stuff last week that deserved timely posts – and the first rule of bloggin’ is talk about stuff that people are talkin’ about).

So, I know you’re jonesin’ to hear the results, so without further a-do-do, here we go . . .

GROSSES

• The tally so far this season is:  $1,028,348,725.
• Last season at the end of Q3 we had grossed $907,595,787.
• That’s the exact same amount we were up at the end of Q2 (13.3%), so we didn’t lose the ground we gained in the first half of the year.

ATTENDANCE

• 9,712,328 people have seen Broadway shows so far this season.
• 8,608,404 people had seen Broadway shows at this point last year.
• That’s a 12.8% increase over last year (we did give up some of our gains from earlier in the year, but not much).

PLAYING WEEKS

• There were 1,203 playing weeks after the third quarter this year.
• There were 1,052 playing weeks after the third quarter last year.
• That’s an increase of 14.4% more shows than last year. Now you see why we’re up so much in gross and attendance?

At the end of Q2 I predicted that we wouldn’t be able to keep up the gains from the first two quarters, and well, I was right.  We’re starting to ebb just a bit (although who’s complaining at these numbers?).  However, with a bunch of big freakin’ musicals to come, I’d expect we’ll have a boost in the fourth and final quarter of the season and end up with record breaking numbers and gains.

Which means that Broadway is boomin’ like it never has before.  In other words . . . who would have thought it . . . but Broadway is actually cool.

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