Wicked Has Broadway and America Seeing Green

Opening October 30, 2003 to mixed reviews by the critics, no one ever expected Wicked the musical to reach the financial success it has as of June 2009.

In fact, the only green director Joe Mantello and Universal Pictures originally caught a glimpse of was the skin of Elphaba, the intelligent and misunderstood character, who later becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.

Elphaba was born green due to her mother’s ingestion of an elixir while becoming pregnant.

In a struggling economy, Wicked continues to post large box office numbers that have all the founding fathers of this brilliant production seeing the color of Elphaba’s skin!

According to Playbill.com, Wicked has averaged over 1.56 million dollars per week at the Gershwin Theatre on Broadway for the last several weeks. The theater has 1809 seats and has been at 100% capacity in that time frame.

The show also sells an average over $300K in merchandise in a seven day period.

The Broadway production set a record for the highest weekly gross in Broadway box office history for the week ending December 30, 2007 taking in a whopping total of $1,839,950.

Wicked has also enjoyed success on the road.

In fact, the same week the Broadway record was shattered, the show grossed $2.29 million in St. Louis, $1.94 million in Los Angeles and $1.41 million in Chicago. All seven worldwide productions gathered a total of $11.2 million that week.

Most recently, Wicked took in over $3.86 million in Chrysler Hall during a three week run. The production netted the city of Norfolk, Virginia another $2.24 million in event-related audience spending outside of ticket sales. Fifty-nine jobs were created during this period, including musicians and people hired to be part of the crew.

Wicked is the number one ticket sold in the secondary market.

According to the largest broker network in the world, TicketNetworkDirect, the average price of a ticket in the secondary market is over $175.

The price of the average ticket on Broadway in the primary market is less than $110.

Overall, this amazing musical has stimulated the economy wherever it has played. Hundreds of thousands of fans have enjoyed this production for almost six years.

In an economy that tends to make the world see red, it is nice to see cities like New York, San Francisco, Memphis and San Antonio seeing green.

The “Wicked” credit mainly goes to the show stopping performance of a well written character and a bad choice her mother made while she was pregnant!

photo: AP

sources: HamptonRoads.com, TicketNetworkDirect and PlayBill.com.

Kris vs Adam or David vs Goliath?

Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine says Adam Lambert single-handedly saved American Idol. “He has the burning “say my name, bitch” thing of Chris Daughtry, the cutthroat vanity of a Carrie Underwood, but also that innocent desire to give pleasure à la Kelly Clarkson. He packs a whole Gong Show of Americana into one pair of striped spandex tights.”

Okay Rob and America, do we even need a final show?

Vegas also favors Adam heavily.

Here are 5 great examples that say yes!

1. 1980 Miracle on Ice

The biggest upset of all-time, sports or otherwise! The magnitude of this victory at a political level was and is unreal. A team of amateur and collegiate players from the United States defeated the Soviet Union considered to be the best international hockey team in the world, 4–3.

2. James “Buster” Douglas over Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson was unbeatable. He was on top of the boxing world. Tyson demolished opponents with ease and had the power and strength of Hercules. Tyson lost his “Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World” title by a KO in round 10 to a 42-to-1 underdog named James “Buster” Douglas on February 11, 1990, in Tokyo.

3. Villanova stuns Georgetown

Villanova Wildcats over Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown Hoyas. Talent-wise, these two basketball teams were at opposite ends of the spectrum. The Wildcats blistered the nets shooting 75% from the field in the game and 90% in the second half. Villanova upset Georgetown in the 1984 NCAA final by a narrow two point margin, 66 to 64.

4. Man O’ War loses only race in 21 starts

And you thought the Kentucky Derby was shocking in 2009 with “Mine That Bird” overcoming 50-to-1 odds to win. The biggest upset in horse racing was 100-to-1 underdog “Upset” beating heavily favored “Man O’ War” in the Sanford Memorial in 1919. Willie Knapp rode “Upset”, the horse whose name has come to mean, “to defeat unexpectedly”.

5. Super Bowl III

Jets Quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed his New York Jets(AFL) a victory over the Baltimore Colts(NFL). The AFL had never won a championship and the victory led to a merger between the two leagues. The NFL had a lack of respect for other league, who had been easily defeated in the prior two Bowls. Namath was named the Super Bowl’s MVP, despite not throwing a touchdown pass in the game or any passes at all in the fourth quarter.

My favorite upset, which I have only seen on NFL films is the last one. In fact, all I knew about Joe Namath was he wore pantyhose. That intrigued me because he had so many women in love with him. Suzy Kolber was the first woman to turn him down!

Q: Rob, are you convinced we need a final now?

A: The 5 “Upsets” above would indicate we do.

We all know Fox is looking forward to the revenue Idol will bring in from advertising dollars.

Q: Can Kris Allen beat Adam Lambert in the showdown?

A: Well, I don’t think he wants to guarantee a victory, though Adam would be the most likely to later wear pantyhose.

Q: I also have heard the debate, “Is it fair that Adam is even a competitor?”

A: Sure, he has enjoyed a semi-successful Broadway career.

I don’t believe he has ever signed a record contract.

Q: Will Danny Gokey’s fans jump on the Kris Allen bandwagon?

A: Twitter has an amazing amount of Adam bashers.

What has Adam Lambert done to the haters besides according to Rob, “single-handedly save” their dying show?

Not going to go there with the gay thing!

Adam haters shouldn’t be too quick to throw stones.

They may, however, want to hand a sling full of them to Kris!

sources: Espn.Go.com, Wikipedia.org

photo source: AP

Event Ticket Market; Bull or Bare?

Marty Rice owns two small businesses in Mansfield, Ohio and owning a successful company in 2009 is much more difficult than it was even a few short years ago. His corrugated box company, Mr. Box Plus, has seen a dip in sales of about 11% to start the year after posting solid numbers in 2008. Most companies are experiencing similar results as America is faced with one of the toughest economic downturns in history.

Marty owns season tickets to the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Cavaliers. With the tough economic times, one would think Marty has stopped attending games and sold his tickets to make up for the loss of income.

Or has he?

Marty splits a dugout suite Progressive Field with 6 other guys. He says that everyone of them is back for the 2009 season.  At a cost of $248,000 this year, Marty’s portion of the package is over $41,000. That doesn’t even include food and beverages on game day. No one especially wants to miss the dessert cart. I have personally been in the suite and win or lose; the dessert cart is a highlight of the location! The seats are so close to the field you can even spit on the on deck hitter. I know my kid tried two years ago!

Marty hasn’t given up his Cavs seats either. In fact, Marty or his clients attended all 41 Cavaliers home games in 2008-09. According to ESPN.Go.Com, the Cavaliers averaged 20,010 fans per night this season, slightly down from their 2007-08 showing of 20,465 per night. Marty says he noticed a great turnout at every Cavs game he attended, “the place was pretty much full every time,” he stated.

So, if Marty feels this way, how about the rest of America? Are fans no longer attending events because they can’t afford it? Not according to Harmon Howe, whose job it is to manage ticket partners for the world’s largest secondary market exchange, TicketNetwork Exchange™. “What’s happened is the average price of a transaction has dropped from last year by about 15%,” stated Howe, “the number of transactions has gone up substantially, about 75%.”

“Instead of going to Disney World for a week, parents are taking their children to a kid’s concert,” said Howe. Although, he really feels economic pressure has pushed down the price of a seat, he offered this, “fans don’t want to miss the opportunity to see an artist or musical group that may not tour for several years or never again.” U2 and Aerosmith are two very popular groups that fit this category and have been very profitable in the secondary market.

Carol-Ann Rudy of www.TicketNews.com supports Howe in her article written for the website on April 22, 2009. Rudy cites Broadway sales are up over $26 million versus last year at this time. Wicked continues to hold the top spot in all of secondary market ticket sales. According to the sites ranking system, the popular musical has more market share than the four shows ranked directly below the show combined!

A USA Today poll launched in March asked, “How will the economic downturn affect your sports consumption?” As of April 28th, 48% of responders say they will, “attend fewer events and watch more TV” and 36% of pollsters say the economy will have no effect at all!

So, despite an almost bare economy where company revenue is down, Marty Rice will jump into his 2005 Chrysler 300M, head up I-71 to Quicken Loans Arena and follow the Cavaliers throughout the rest of their playoff run. LeBron James is the favorite to win the MVP award and his team had the best regular season record at home this year in the NBA. According to Marty, it’s worth the money he will spend to sit in Club Section 124. Yep, Marty thinks it would be “bull” to sell his playoff tickets or any other ticket he owns at this point. He feels, “the excitement of the playoffs has overridden the economy.”