Broadway 2023–24 in review: a flat season and an expensive one
The Pulse · Season in review · 2023–24
Broadway grossed $1.54B in 2023–24, −2.4% on the season before, on the same 12.3M admissions. The average paid ticket fell to $125.27, −2.5%. Flat revenue is a hard market for a new show, whose costs are set before it opens, and the season's new musicals paid for it.
A retrospective, published October 4, 2026, from the Broadway League's season statistics and the reporting cited below.
The season in numbers
Total gross
$1.54B
vs 2022–23 −2.4%
vs 2018–19 −16%
Attendance
12.3M
vs 2022–23 flat
vs 2018–19 −17%
Avg. paid ticket
$125.27
vs 2022–23 −2.5%
Capacity
89.6%
from 88.3%
Playing weeks
1,471
52-week season
New productions
39
40 the season before
Broadway gross by season · $ billions
A step back: the only full post-pandemic season to gross less than the one before.
2015–16
1.37
2016–17
1.45
2017–18
1.70
2018–19
1.83
2019–20
1.36
2021–22
0.85
2022–23
1.58
2023–24
1.54
Red: the season reviewed here. Muted: the two seasons cut short by the pandemic (2019–20 stopped in March 2020; 2021–22 began in late summer 2021; there was no 2020–21 season). Source: the Broadway League.
The new musicals
01
Five closed within months.
Once Upon a One More Time, Here Lies Love, Harmony, How to Dance in Ohio and Days of Wine and Roses all closed within months of opening, and Lempicka, more than a decade in development, closed about a month after it opened. By the Broadway Journal's count, the season's musicals had lost about $98M as it ended.
02
Why they closed (our read).
A new musical's weekly running costs are high and mostly fixed, so it needs full houses at full prices for months to pay back. In a season when the average ticket fell 2.5% and attendance was flat, a new title without a large advance had to discount to fill seats, which cuts what each seat brings in against the same costs. That is why The Pulse reads the grosses per available seat, not per week.
What worked
01
Merrily We Roll Along paid back.
The Sondheim revival with Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez, produced for $12M, announced its recoupment within the season (Broadway Journal).
02
Hell's Kitchen found its audience.
Alicia Keys's musical grossed $1.6M in the season's final week, the highest gross of its run to that point (Playbill).
03
Fifteen shows still grossed $1M.
In the season's final week, 15 of the 35 running shows took $1M or more, led by The Lion King at $2.03M, with Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club †, Hamilton, Wicked, Merrily, Hell's Kitchen, MJ and The Great Gatsby among them (Playbill).
The Tonys: a split decision
01
The Outsiders took Best Musical; Suffs took the writing.
The Outsiders won Best Musical and Danya Taymor's direction. Shaina Taub's Suffs won both book and score, a rare split between the top prize and the writing awards.
02
Stereophonic swept the plays.
David Adjmi's Stereophonic won Best Play, Daniel Aukin's direction and Will Brill's featured performance. Appropriate won Best Revival of a Play and Sarah Paulson won for it; Jeremy Strong won for An Enemy of the People.
03
Merrily and Hell's Kitchen shared the acting.
Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe won for Merrily, which also took Best Revival of a Musical. Hell's Kitchen won for Maleah Joi Moon and Kecia Lewis. Justin Peck's Illinoise won for choreography.
What it set up
2023–24 is the only full season since the reopening to gross less than the one before it. It also cleared the decks: the costly new musicals closed, the long-runners held, and three of the shows in the final week's $1M group were star vehicles in limited runs: Merrily, An Enemy of the People and Uncle Vanya (Playbill). The next season was built on that product.
Notes
† OFFSCRIPT is a producer, co-producer or investor in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club (marked †). Observations on other productions come from published grosses and reporting, not from their books; the read on why the new musicals closed is our inference.
Sources: the Broadway League (season statistics 2015–16 to 2025–26); Playbill, 2023–24 season grosses analysis (May 22, 2024); Broadway Journal, "Declining sales mute season's curtain call" (2024); New York Theater, 2024 Tony Award winners.
Season figures are the Broadway League's, for the League's season (late May to late May); percentage changes are computed from the League's unrounded figures. Educational only; not an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security.
The Pulse is OFFSCRIPT's weekly read on the Broadway grosses, every Tuesday, alongside Investing Unpacked. How we read the numbers: our methodology.