Industry Insights · Methodology
How we read the grosses
Every Monday the Broadway League publishes the previous week's box office for every show on Broadway. Most coverage reads that table as a scoreboard. The Pulse reads it the way a producer's general manager or an investor would: as the top line of a weekly P&L. This page sets out where the numbers come from, how we compute them and the rules we hold ourselves to.
Sources
Every figure in The Pulse traces to the Broadway League's weekly grosses, taken from the published table on BroadwayWorld and cross-checked against Playbill and the League's own release. The table covers, per show, the week's gross, the previous week's gross, the average paid ticket, the top ticket price, attendance, the seats available, the number of performances and the percentage of capacity, this week and last. The week runs Monday to Sunday; we publish on Tuesday.
We work from a saved copy of the table and reconcile our totals to the League's header figures before anything is written. Where a show's row is missing or revised after publication, we say so in the issue.
What we compute
| Measure | How it is computed | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Total gross | The sum of every show's reported gross. | The market's top line for the week. |
| Attendance | The sum of every show's reported attendance. | Bodies in seats, before price. |
| Average paid ticket | Total gross ÷ total attendance, for the market and for each show. | What a show is actually paid per seat sold: the number profit follows, and the one a capacity figure hides. |
| Capacity | Attendance ÷ seats available. | How full the houses were. Full and profitable are not the same thing. |
| Week over week | Two figures: the headline change in the market total, and the same-show change across the shows that played both weeks. | The gap between the two is calendar (openings and closings), not demand. |
| Year over year | The change against the same week last year. When the number of shows differs, we also give the per-show figure and use it for any claim about attendance or price. | Twenty-six shows against twenty-eight is not a like-for-like market. |
| Yield ratio | Average paid ticket ÷ top ticket price: cents on the top-price dollar. | A rough public read on how deep the discounting runs. Premium top prices pull it down too, so it is most useful as one show's trend over time. |
| Divergence | Gross falling faster than attendance, or the reverse. | The public tell for discounting and papering, or for pricing power. |
On gross potential
Gross potential is what a week would gross if every seat sold at full price. A show's general manager tracks it privately; it is not in the public table, and we never print a figure for it. The yield ratio above is the public proxy we use instead.
How an issue is built
Every issue has the same shape, so that week to week the numbers are comparable and nothing is chosen to flatter a story.
01
The headline.
The single biggest signal in the week's data, stated as a claim we can back with a number.
02
The week.
Total gross, attendance, average paid ticket and capacity, each with the week-over-week and year-over-year change.
03
The number.
One chart that carries the headline, usually eight to ten shows around the street average.
04
The read for investors.
Four observations, each a claim with its evidence. At least one is about the calendar or the season.
05
Hidden mechanic of the week.
One piece of how the business works, tied to that week's data.
06
Investing Unpacked.
A separate weekly post that takes one mechanism of the business apart in depth: recoupment math, the paperwork, touring, pricing, market structure and new models, in rotation.
Worked examples
When Investing Unpacked runs the numbers on a mechanism, it uses a hypothetical show with round-number assumptions, and it says so. The assumptions are printed with every model. We never use a real production's confidential figures, and a model is not a forecast for any show.
Weeks to recoup = unrecouped capital ÷ weekly operating profit
Formulas like this one are the ordinary arithmetic of the business, stated so that a reader can apply them to a show's own offering documents and the public grosses.
Rules we hold ourselves to
01
Every number traces to the table.
Or to a labelled model. Nothing is estimated in prose.
02
Inferences are labelled.
We can see what other productions grossed; we cannot see their costs or their deals. Observations about them are inferences from published data, and are described that way.
03
Our own shows are data points, not examples.
OFFSCRIPT is a producer or investor in shows on Broadway. Each issue names the ones in that week's table. They appear in charts and tables like every other show, and we do not use them as the cautionary example in a read or a mechanic.
04
Consistent rounding.
Market totals to one decimal in millions ($24.1M), tickets to the dollar ($115), percentages to the point (87%). Changes are computed from the unrounded figures.
05
Corrections are made in the open.
If a figure or a claim is wrong, we correct the post and note what changed.
A note on what this is
The Pulse and Investing Unpacked are educational commentary on public box-office data and on how the Broadway business works. Nothing here is an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security, and nothing here is investment advice. Any investment in a production is made only through that production's own offering documents, and only by investors who meet the applicable requirements. Theatre investing involves significant risk, including the loss of the entire investment.