Broadway’s 2025-2026 season grossed $1,910,903,835, the highest in recorded history, on 14,577,322 attendances. The record came with an asterisk: attendance was down 0.6%, but only because the previous season ran 53 weeks instead of 52. On equal weeks, attendance rose 1.8% and gross rose 3.5%. The more interesting split is inside the totals — plays gained roughly half a million attendances while musicals absorbed the entire decline. The figures below come from The Broadway League and the Society of London Theatre.
TL;DR
- The 2025-2026 season grossed $1.91 billion, a record (Broadway League)
- Attendance was 14,577,322 (Broadway League)
- Gross rose 1.0% unadjusted, 3.5% adjusted for the extra week (Broadway League)
- Attendance fell 0.6% unadjusted, rose 1.8% adjusted (Broadway League)
- Theaters filled 90.8% of available seats (Broadway League)
- The season carried 74 productions, 35 of them new (Broadway League)
- There were 13,416 performances across 1,703 playing weeks (Broadway League)
- Play attendance rose to 3.32 million from just over 2.8 million (Broadway League)
- Musical attendance fell to 11,232,843 (Broadway League)
- The 2023-2024 season grossed $1.54 billion on 12.3 million (Broadway League)
- London recorded 17.64 million attendances in 2025 (SOLT)
- That is roughly 3 million more than Broadway (Derived)
- West End revenue passed £1 billion for the first time (SOLT)
- Broadway supports nearly 100,000 regional jobs (Broadway League)
1. A Record Season With a Calendar Asterisk
The headline number is clean and the comparison is not. Broadway grossed $1,910,903,835 in 2025-2026, its highest ever, while attendance slipped 0.6% to 14,577,322.
Those two directions look contradictory until the calendar is accounted for. Every seventh year the season adds a 53rd week to realign with the calendar, and 2024-2025 was that year. Compared week for week, gross rose 3.5%, attendance rose 1.8%, and average ticket price rose 1.7% — all three moving up together, which is a healthier signal than a record gross carried by pricing alone.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Season gross | $1,910,903,835 | Broadway League |
| Attendance | 14,577,322 | Broadway League |
| Gross change, unadjusted | up 1.0% | Broadway League |
| Attendance change, unadjusted | down 0.6% | Broadway League |
| Gross change, week-adjusted | up 3.5% | Broadway League |
| Attendance change, week-adjusted | up 1.8% | Broadway League |
| Average ticket change, week-adjusted | up 1.7% | Broadway League |
| Weeks in season | 52 (prior: 53) | Broadway League |
| Implied average ticket price | approx. $131 | Derived from Broadway League figures |
Source: The Broadway League, 2025-2026 season wrap.
2. Plays Grew, Musicals Absorbed the Entire Decline
The composition shift is the most underreported number of the season. Play attendance rose to 3.32 million from just over 2.8 million, while musical attendance fell from 11,758,735 to 11,232,843.
Subtract the two and the season’s overall dip is entirely a musicals story — plays actually offset part of it. That matches the production slate, where 21 of the 35 new productions were plays against 12 musicals. Star-led limited-run plays carry lower running costs and shorter risk windows than musicals, which is the economic logic behind the tilt.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Play attendance, 2025-2026 | 3.32 million | Broadway League |
| Play attendance, 2024-2025 | just over 2.8 million | Broadway League |
| Musical attendance, 2025-2026 | 11,232,843 | Broadway League |
| Musical attendance, 2024-2025 | 11,758,735 | Broadway League |
| Change in musical attendance | down approx. 526,000 | Derived from Broadway League figures |
| New plays opened | 21 | Broadway League |
| New musicals opened | 12 | Broadway League |
Source: Broadway News on the record season.
3. Capacity Is the Number That Survives the Calendar
Attendance totals depend on how many weeks and how many theaters were running. Capacity does not. Broadway filled 90.8% of available seats across 13,416 performances.
At that level the constraint is physical rather than commercial for the strongest titles, which is what pushes premium pricing and makes the average ticket figure less useful than it sounds. The 74 productions splitting 1,703 playing weeks also indicates a crowded calendar rather than a handful of hits carrying the street.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity filled | 90.8% | Broadway League |
| Performances | 13,416 | Broadway League |
| Playing weeks | 1,703 | Broadway League |
| Total productions | 74 | Broadway League |
| New productions | 35 | Broadway League |
| Continuing productions | 39 | Broadway League |
| New original musicals | 6 | Broadway League |
| New musical revivals | 4 | Broadway League |
| New original plays | 14 | Broadway League |
| New play revivals | 7 | Broadway League |
Source: The Broadway League, 2025-2026 season wrap.
4. Three Seasons of Recovery, Then a Plateau
The trajectory since the pandemic disruption has two distinct phases, and 2025-2026 begins the second. The 2024-2025 season jumped 23% in gross and 19.3% in attendance; 2025-2026 added 3.5% and 1.8% on comparable weeks.
That is a recovery completing rather than stalling. The 2023-2024 season’s $1.54 billion on 12.3 million attendances was still catching up; the two seasons since have been about consolidating at a higher level, with growth rates settling into something closer to normal market movement.
| Season | Gross | Attendance | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-2026 | $1.91 billion | 14,577,322 | Broadway League |
| 2024-2025 | $1,892,650,959 | 14,658,531 | Broadway League |
| 2023-2024 | $1.54 billion | 12.3 million | Broadway League |
| 2024-2025 change | up 23% gross, up 19.3% attendance | — | Broadway League |
| 2025-2026 change, adjusted | up 3.5% gross, up 1.8% attendance | — | Broadway League |
The consolidation pattern resembles what happened to theatrical film in the same window, tracked in the box office data.
Source: The Broadway League, 2024-2025 season wrap.
5. London Outdraws Broadway by Roughly Three Million
The West End is the larger theatre market by attendance and it is still growing faster. London recorded 17.64 million attendances in 2025, up 3.16%, against Broadway’s 14.58 million.
Revenue passed £1 billion for the first time, and the comparison the Society of London Theatre likes to make is with football: West End attendance exceeded Premier League attendance by about 2.5 million. Roughly one in four international visitors to London attends a West End performance, which makes tourism recovery a direct input to the numbers.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| West End attendance, 2025 | 17.64 million | SOLT |
| Change year over year | up 3.16% | SOLT |
| West End attendance, 2024 | over 17.1 million | SOLT |
| Change vs pre-pandemic | up 11% | SOLT |
| West End revenue | over £1 billion | SOLT |
| Lead over Broadway | approx. 3 million | Derived |
| Lead over Premier League attendance | approx. 2.5 million | SOLT |
| International visitors attending | approx. 1 in 4 | SOLT |
Source: Society of London Theatre, data and research.
6. The Economy Around the Curtain
Ticket revenue is the smallest part of theatre’s economic footprint. The Broadway League puts regional employment at nearly 100,000 jobs, against a season gross of $1.91 billion — the spending multiplier runs through restaurants, hotels, and transport rather than box office.
Touring is the piece most often left out of Broadway coverage: League research put the economic impact of touring productions above $5 billion across metropolitan areas in the 2023-2024 season. The most detailed New York City figure, $14.7 billion contributed and 96,900 jobs supported, dates from the 2018-2019 season and is the most recent available at that granularity.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Regional jobs supported | nearly 100,000 | Broadway League |
| Touring economic impact, 2023-2024 | over $5 billion | Broadway League |
| NYC contribution, 2018-2019 | $14.7 billion | Broadway League |
| NYC jobs, 2018-2019 | 96,900 | Broadway League |
| Season gross for comparison | $1.91 billion | Broadway League |
Live performance economics sit alongside the touring and rights picture in the music industry figures and the royalty splits that govern them.
Source: The Broadway League research reports.
Summary: Broadway and Live Theatre by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Season gross, 2025-2026 | $1,910,903,835 | Broadway League |
| Attendance | 14,577,322 | Broadway League |
| Gross change, week-adjusted | up 3.5% | Broadway League |
| Attendance change, week-adjusted | up 1.8% | Broadway League |
| Average ticket change | up 1.7% | Broadway League |
| Implied average ticket | approx. $131 | Derived |
| Capacity filled | 90.8% | Broadway League |
| Performances | 13,416 | Broadway League |
| Playing weeks | 1,703 | Broadway League |
| Productions | 74 | Broadway League |
| New productions | 35 | Broadway League |
| Play attendance | 3.32 million | Broadway League |
| Musical attendance | 11,232,843 | Broadway League |
| Gross, 2024-2025 | $1,892,650,959 | Broadway League |
| Attendance, 2024-2025 | 14,658,531 | Broadway League |
| Gross, 2023-2024 | $1.54 billion | Broadway League |
| West End attendance, 2025 | 17.64 million | SOLT |
| West End revenue | over £1 billion | SOLT |
| West End growth | up 3.16% | SOLT |
| Regional jobs | nearly 100,000 | Broadway League |
| Touring impact, 2023-2024 | over $5 billion | Broadway League |
Methodology and Sources
- Season gross, attendance, capacity, production counts, and performance totals come from The Broadway League’s end-of-season releases (2025-2026 wrap, 2024-2025 wrap) and its published season statistics tables.
- The play-versus-musical attendance split and the week-adjusted growth rates were corroborated against trade coverage of the same League data (Broadway News, Deadline).
- London figures come from the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre’s box office reporting (SOLT data and research, 2025 Box Office Data Report coverage).
- Employment and touring impact figures come from The Broadway League’s research program (research reports).
- Data watch: Broadway seasons run roughly late May to late May and do not align with calendar years, while SOLT reports on the calendar year, so the London-versus-Broadway comparison spans different periods and is approximate. The 53rd week in 2024-2025 makes every unadjusted year-over-year comparison misleading; both the raw and adjusted figures are given here for that reason. The implied average ticket price is total gross divided by total attendance and is not the League’s own published average, which is calculated on a per-week basis. The New York City economic impact figures date from the 2018-2019 season and are the most recent available at that level of detail; they predate the pandemic disruption entirely. Grosses are nominal and not inflation-adjusted, so records set in consecutive years partly reflect price growth. Rows marked as derived are arithmetic on published figures.
- Last updated: August 14, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next major refresh is expected with The Broadway League’s next end-of-season release.