At what time, and on which days, should the curtain rise on a Broadway show? Given that Broadway productions can generally only have eight performances per week, these schedule decisions could determine whether any given show is able to attract a sufficient size audience to meet its weekly running costs and stay in business. As Broadway continues to struggle with an ongoing post-pandemic box office malaise, more shows are moving up their performance start times and, in a few cases, adding more matinees in the belief that many audience members (suburban, families, older, tourists) would prefer to attend at an earlier time and arrive home sooner rather than later. “During the pandemic, people got very comfortable at home and their habits have drastically changed,” said Broadway producer Ken Davenport, who added Thursday matinee performances last season for his shows.
Davenport noted that Broadway’s suburban audience has decreased by 30 percent since the pandemic. “We on Broadway can be very stubborn, but the pandemic has forced us to look at our entire business model. What can we do to be more available to audiences that want to see us? On ‘A Beautiful Noise’ and ‘Harmony,’ I tried very hard to listen to my audience, and what we found was that the matinees were selling even more than Saturday nights.
” Moving up start times is not unprecedented. During Broadway’s “golden age” in the mid-20 th century, evening performances began at 8:30 p.m.
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