The Broadway League's weekly box office report will be significantly changed effective June 1, the first week of the 2009-2010 season (week ending 5/31/09).
Starting next week, The Broadway League will begin reporting Gross Gross, Gross Gross Potential, and Total Attendance as the official public Broadway numbers. Previously, the League has reported Net Gross, Net Gross Potential, and Paid Attendance.
Traditionally, "Net Gross" reflects deductions - credit card fees and group sales commissions, amongst others - already removed from the figures. The new "Gross Gross" figures will thus be larger numbers than in the past, as they will not reflect such subtractions.
Also breaking with tradition is the new "Total Attendance" figure. In the past, only purchased tickets were included in the attendance figures. The new figures will include the thousands of tickets given away each year for awards, industry and media usage.
Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director of The Broadway League, states that these changes were "brought up at our annual meeting in 2007 in December, and a Task Force, chaired by Alan Wasser, met over the course of 6 months and made the following recommendations to change the reporting of grosses and total attendance. These recommendations then went to the Executive Committee and the Board of Governors who approved the changes. Please note that we were going to initiate these change in January of 2008 but decided to start with the new season so that we could have accurate year over year comparisons."
For more information on The Broadway League visit www.BroadwayLeague.com
