Advances to Pay Expenses?

[BdwayLife]

Posted: 4/19/20 at 2:44pm

The Broadway League president recently indicated that several shows are using advances to pay for expenses during this period.  

I asked in the thread related to her interview when ticketing agencies (e.g., Ticketmaster, Telecharge, etc.) release funds to productions.  I thought I read once in an unrelated thread that it wasn’t until the actual performances date, but, this makes me think that is not true.  

For those of you in the know, can you please clarify?  

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 4/19/20 at 4:14pm

It could be that she misspoke and meant the reserve (a lot of productions will include a certain amount in their capitalization to cover expenses during a portion of the show's run while they build up word of mouth and advance ticket sales). It could also be that there are certain types of loans available where the advance is used as a form of collateral (I'm just speculating here, but it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that a loan to help a show such as Wicked or Hamilton, both of which would have significant advance sales, to cover some "re-start up" expenses would be a much surer bet to a financial institution than to a new show that hadn't even opened yet and had little in ways of advance sales going into the summer months even before the shut down happened).