NYMF Concludes 3rd Season with Record Attendance

By: Oct. 16, 2006
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The 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival completed its third year with a 65% increase in audience attendance compared to 2005, which is a record number for the young event.

The 3rd Annual New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), which ended its run on October 1, saw attendance increase by more than 65% over 2005, to more than 36,400 attendees across all Festival events.

This continues a record-setting year for NYMF, with peak numbers being set for a single day of ticket sales (with 4,000 seats being sold on the first day of sales), for membership numbers, which increased three-fold from 2005, and patron numbers, which doubled from last year.

Attendance at NYMF '06 was at 80% of capacity, with the Festival in much larger venues than previous years.  90% of Festival shows announced sold-out performances and more than half of this year's productions played to capacity houses for their entire runs, prompting NYMF to add performances as early as three days into ticket sales.

"It has been a pretty amazing period of growth for us.  I think this speaks volumes on the need for an event like NYMF, which can shine such a strong light on new musical theatre talent," said Kris Stewart, NYMF Executive Director and founder.

"Of course, as much as we're encouraged by the interest shown by general audiences, I think the most encouraging part of year three was the diversity of the writing and the talent," added Executive Producer Isaac Robert Hurwitz. "The record we're proudest of is the record number of first-time writers launched this year."

"The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) is a three-week event in NYC that has premiered 99 musicals in its first three seasons, becoming the largest musical theatre event in American history. Hailed as 'the Sundance of Musical Theatre,' it is now widely regarded among the entertainment industry as the key source for new material and talent discovery," state notes.

NYMF is a flagship program of the National Music Theater Network, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization and is produced in association with New World Stages, Playbill and Points.com and proudly supported by amNewYork, Frank & Camille's, King Displays, Manhattan Living, Niaterra Arts and Entertainment, the Production Resource Group, O­ne Dream Sound, Rosco, Tekserve, Verizon Wireless, the Village Voice, Virgin Megastores and WNYC in partnership with Ars Nova, Balducci's,
Big City Graph-X, Broadway.com, Broadwayworld.com, HX Magazine, Izze Soft Drinks, TheMENevent.com, Met Photo, Morpheus Light, Panasonic Astrovision and TheaterMania.com, and Wybron. NYMF is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council o­n the Arts, a state agency.

Visit www.nymf.org for more information.



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