The magic of the Phantom’s throne: (2024)

Not necessarily. Capacity is one thing, profits is another, so if you have a full house but you lowered the ticket price to half what they were, then you still only made 50% of what you were supposed to - or basically, it was like you were playing to half the house.

And I don’t think ticket sales are solely what’s going on here. For one, Phantom on Broadway hasn’t been doing that badly compared to other shows in terms of ticket sales; if anything, it’s doing a fair bit better than less established shows, and this shows that the last few weeks, it was at around 70% to 80% capacity. For another, unlike newer shows, Phantom has recouped its costs many years ago, it doesn’t have to worry about paying back anything. And Phantom has historically had some pretty lousy years - there were times in the 2000s when the show had less than half its seats sold for months, only getting a boost during the holiday season, and that went on for years, only ending when the 2004 movie came out. And once you take into account the periodic trends of ticket sales (spring and fall always tend to have lower sales while summers and winters, when people have holidays and vacations, see a real boost) and that the post-pandemic climate means everything is struggling…

I dunno, I might be getting conspiracy theorist here, but I kind of agree with people who say that this was a calculated move on the higher-ups part to get rid of the remaining flagship production with the old (and therefore more costly) sets, full orchestra, larger crew, etc. and make way for a cheaper revival in a few years. We already see the trend with the various tours being restaged and modified and then with West End doing the same, so the Broadway production’s days were probably numbered the day it was reopened. Ticket sales are lower than what it was before, but so is everything else, and with time it might have gone up, but the fact that it’s low now gave enough justification to decide to close it.

Long story short: I’m not sure that anything short of playing at full house almost every week would have saved Phantom on Broadway, this is just the trend things are going with it and theater in general.