A blog reader, noticing that I’m currently in New York, has written to me wondering if I could answer why it is that the League of American Theatres and Producers releases weekly box office figures to the trade press here, while SOLT publishes only annual cumulative numbers, never by show? “Is there any way (besides calling each producer) to find out which shows are bestselling, or sold out?”, she asks.
It’s a good question, but there’s no ready answer. It seems less strange that the West End doesn’t share this commercially sensitive, private business information than that Broadway does! Why on earth would you want your competitors to know exactly what sort of business you’re doing? I have no idea why it has become standard practice for this information to be traded so freely over on Broadway, but I know that West End producers would never wish to do the same the UK. The only way you can find out how something is doing in London is to actually do the sight test — going to the theatre in person and buying a ticket and looking around the auditorium yourself! There is no other way! But that doesn’t anwer the question, either: it may tell you how a show is doing at that performance, but you cannot extrapolate from that to look at the monthly or even weekly turnover.
