The Broadway.com Effect

Whenever I want to find out information about a particular show or performer, my first stop is always Broadway.com. Since it’s beginning in 1999, Broadway.com has established itself as the leading source of Broadway related information. Broadway.com has built its brand on a foundation of putting Broadway starts on a pedestal and elevating the Broadway experience, making it a haven for Broadway enthusiasts as well as those seeking information about theater.

(Broadway.com Logo - Source: Broadway.com)

Since 1999, the site has been creatively helmed by editor-and-chief, Paul Wontorek, who has been largely responsible for making the site into what it is today. In an interview with Stage-Rush.com in 2011, Wontorek said that his goal for the site has always been to help people of all theater backgrounds, or lack-there-of, learn about Broadway and to “treat Broadway stars like stars instead of just actors.” He said, ““I wanted my mom to be able to click on a story and read it without feeling she was excluded.” But Broadway.com has gone far beyond simply writing articles. The site includes a wide variety of unique multi-media features including photos and videos that give the public access to goings-on behind the scenes. Some of the features include video blogs where actors in a show are given a camera for 8 weeks to document their lives, “Ask a Star” interviews where viewers send in questions for their favorite stars, video and photo coverage of rehearsals and opening nights, and much more. For several years, the site has even hosted their own annual awards show, the Broadway.com Audience Choice Awards. Additionally, the site provides basic a basic overview for every show such as schedules, and cast, theater and box office information.

(Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette at the Broadway.com Awards - Source: Broadway.com)

Broadway.com is also an enormous draw for consumers in terms of ticket sales, making it a one-stop-shop for everything Broadway related. Broadway.com sells tickets at face value but adds fees to each sale; the better the seat, the higher the fee. The fees fluctuate depending on the show, but a fee for an orchestra seat is in the $70 range. Regarding ticket sales, Wontorek says that Broadway.com has “come up with a very lucrative revenue system.” Often when someone does a Google search to find tickets to a show, Broadway.com comes up before the official ticket vendors.  

I have watched Broadway.com develop for many years as it became more sophisticated and developed more and more features and I have been so impressed by what it has done for the industry. We live in a culture that is fanatical about movies and television, especially their starts, and a great deal of that can be attributed to the fact that it is so mainstream. We have such effortless access to screen media and their starts, through magazines, websites such as TMZ, and television shows and even whole channels that are dedicated to updating the public about industry news. Broadway.com is the best comparison that the theatre industry has to any of that, and it has proven to be unbelievably successful. Though other sites have tried to follow Broadway.com’s lead, no one else has come close to being able to do what they do, as well as they do. Therefore I think that there is a great deal of room in the market for more sites like it to be successful and lucrative if they can operate on the same level.

(Paul Wontorek Interviews Idina Menzel - Source: Broadway.com)

Additionally, if I were a producer, I would go out of my way to make sure that my show was involved in as many Broadway.com features as possible. Not only would doing so generate buzz and familiarity for my show with general consumers, it would also help to create a large fan base. According to the Broadway League, the group of devoted fans who attended 15 or more performances a year comprised only 5% of the audience, but accounted for 31% of all tickets, or 3.6 million admissions. Since almost a third of ticket buyers are made up of the most passionate fans, the type who visit Broadway.com regularly, as a producer it would be smart to use their features to get fans involved in your show.