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Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?
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Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#1
Posted: 10/27/07 at 2:55am
I was on broadway.com and on the main page it says happy fourth birthday wicked. That got me wondering. Has there ever been another show other then Wicked to be sold out non stop for four years?

It seems to me that most shows after this period of time start to die down in ticket sales just a tad. It seems to me that after this point in time in a shows life the hype has died down and there are people who are able to get tickets.

So, back to my qustion. Has there ever been another show on broadway that has been constently sold out for four years plus?

I was thinking the Lion king but after the four year mark you were able to get tickets. True that it is still a top selling show but it is a top selling show that you can easilly get a tickiet to. The same is not true for Wicked.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#2
Posted: 10/27/07 at 3:11am
Maybe POTO when it first opened 100 years ago.
....but the world goes 'round
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#2
Posted: 10/27/07 at 3:13am
If only a system of keeping records and filing had been invented when Phantom of the Opera opened...
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#3
Posted: 10/27/07 at 3:25am
Wicked hasn't sold out for 4 years straight.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#4
Posted: 10/27/07 at 4:12am
There have been random weeks where they haven't hit 100%. And, the first few months didn't sell out at all.
No good can possibly come from using this vast wasteland of error and deliberate deceit. You should get off of it and warn others away. You should make sure your children and grandchildren know what a corrupt and morally bankrupt institution it truly is.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#5
Posted: 10/27/07 at 5:58am
Cats at the Winter Garden. Similarly in London for about 10 years. (albeit a much smaller auditorium)
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#7
Posted: 10/27/07 at 9:11am
2 years from now I can almost guarantee we will be saying Jersey Boys.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#8
Posted: 10/27/07 at 9:21am
I doubt Jersey Boys will stay completely sold out once the original boys leave.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#9
Posted: 10/27/07 at 9:22am
Hmmm... If I remember correctly, WICKED was always doing pretty well even in the beginning. It's initial week of previews was just about 98% sold and the lowest attendance I remember was about 88% during opening week and I believe that is because most of the tickets were invited press tickets and guest comps. It hasn't sold out since the beginning, but I do believe 2005 had 52 consecutive weeks of sold out performances.

It's doing very well for itself :)
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#10
Posted: 10/27/07 at 9:31am
Wicked was actually offered on TDF for several weeks after it opened. So much for the myth.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#11
Posted: 10/27/07 at 9:34am
I can not imagine a world where Wicked is not the top selling Broadway musical. The day they find one that can beat it will be a big day.
"It means nothing to come and sit in a theater night after night and immerse yourself in fantasy, only then to walk out the door and be unchanged in reality. This show will live on in our hearts. But where it truly must survive is in our actions, our compassion and our generousity of spirit towards one another." - Adam Pascal on the closing of RENT
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#12
Posted: 10/27/07 at 9:43am
Just wait in a couple or so years. Things change and new trends happen.
"[Gore] was widely perceived as arrogant. If you know something, you're not smart. You're a smarty-pants. It's annoying. People get annoyed with your knowledge. It goes back to high school, to not doing your homework ... 'There's something I should know, I don't know why I should know it but someone knows it and I don't. So I'm going to have to make fun of him now.'" -Sarah Vowell, The Partly-Cloudy Patriot
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#13
Posted: 10/27/07 at 10:04am
Lion king is sold out nonstop and we're on what? 10 years now.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#14
Posted: 10/27/07 at 10:22am
The Little Mermaid is the new Wicked....

....hahaha!!
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#15
Posted: 10/27/07 at 10:50am
Though most of us weren't around for it, there was a time in the late 80's/early 90's when ALW had both POTO and Cats were sold out.

If the audience could do better, they'd be up here on stage and I'd be out there watching them. - Ethel Merman
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#16
Posted: 10/27/07 at 11:27am
"I doubt Jersey Boys will stay completely sold out once the original boys leave."


About 95% of JB's nightly audience has no clue who they are watching on stage, even after the entire performance. They are going for the Four Seasons and will continue to go long after the guys leave. The same thoughts were around when Chenoweth and eventually Menzel left Wicked.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#17
Posted: 10/27/07 at 11:30am
MAMMA MIA!
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#18
Posted: 10/27/07 at 11:41am
Yes, aside from a couple of weeks here and there during the slow months, CATS, PHANTOM and LION KING were all sold out pretty much non-stop for the first several years of their runs.

I imagine if anyone has stats for them, long-running hits like MY FAIR LADY, FIDDLER and A CHORUS LINE were all probably sold out for their first several years as well.

And no, if you went over to the August Wilson Theater right now and asked them, 99.9% of the people in the audience at JERSEY BOYS couldn't name the four leads in the show by name unless they read them to you out of the Playbill. The "show" is the star there (and The Four Seasons' music), not Young and company.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie [http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/] "The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#19
Posted: 10/27/07 at 12:40pm
"Though most of us weren't around for it, there was a time in the late 80's/early 90's"

Speak for yourself, please.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#21
Posted: 10/27/07 at 1:04pm
Rent and the Chicago Revival were sold out for the first few years of their run pretty much if memory serves me right.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#22
Posted: 10/27/07 at 1:31pm
RENT was totally sold out for its first two and a half years or so (though in the upper 90s for the next several years). The CHICAGO revival really was only totally soldout the first year and then alternated between soldout weeks and weeks in the upper 90s for a couple of years afterwards (you can see the box office histories of both shows by looking them up in the "Bway Grosses" to the left).
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#23
Posted: 10/27/07 at 1:34pm
I agree with Jersey Boys.

People are going to see it for the Four Seasons. When I went, the crowd was on the older side. All 4 leads could have been understudies and the majority of the audience wouldn't know.
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re: Wicked sold out for four years straght. Any other show able to do this?#24
Posted: 10/27/07 at 1:44pm
There have been random weeks where they haven't hit 100%. And, the first few months didn't sell out at all.

When you are talking about a 4 year run in the biggest house on Broadway - I don't really count "random weeks" and the "first few months" as a detriment in the whole scheme of things. Basically, it's pretty much been sold out for 4 years and counting.....

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