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I used to go to a musical every time I visited NYC but hotels in NYC cost so much because of the hotel construction ban that I rarely visit anymore
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Derek Thompson
@DKThomp
Broadway is in trouble - 18 new musicals opened on Broadway last season; none has made a profit - Since 2020, 46 new musicals have opened on Broadway, costing ~$800 million; 43 lost money - Jason Laks, the president of the Broadway League, estimates that the share of musicals
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David Watson 🥑
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Also in SF, we have practically banned new hotels. If conditionally permitted at all under zoning, they must go through public hearings where is put in the position of judging whether a hotel is viable/desirable. OTOH we’ve converted cheap hotels into drug dens.
They’re annoying now, in a way in which they were not previously. ‘Affirmation applause’ etc is disturbing.
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Clark H
@Clarksterh
Replying to @nonblankslate and @feelsdesperate
Went to see musical &Juliet - audience was substantially more interesting than musical itself. Eg lots of ‘affirmation applause/laughter’. A few instances of call and response. Very diff experience than theater used to be - political not just in subject matter but in style
Also about 10% of NYC hotels have been converted into X (something that's not a hotel), decreasing supply and raising prices. Similar effect in Dublin. I can't tell you what X is because will call me racist.
Going to a musical now is like $2500 all in with hotels, food, drinks, regional transport. That's kind of a crazy number when you think about the other fun things you can do with $2500.
Flip side of the same coin: why is the cost of local labor that goes into set, costumes, putting on a show generally outpacing revenue? Gotta pay people enough to be worth their time and live close enough to do the work — that’s a general housing story.
I stayed at Moxy Lower East Side (Bowery) in early August over a weekend for $250/night. I think the whole NYC hotel pricing panic is a bit overblown.
Sounds a little bit like the Vegas thing - costs are just too high. And yes some of the workers in Vegas and on Broadway make too much money - that is also part of the cost problem. I could afford it, but on principle I've stopped spending money on Vegas, Broadway, shows, etc
I stay in DT Brooklyn half the time now because Manhattan prices when I go for work are insane, but they're owning those neolibs by not building more hotels!
We used to see multiple shows a year, but don’t go anymore. It used to be common amongst my friends, but I can only think of one friend who has been recently and that person has a kid studying musical theater. For me, it’s a combo of cost and lack of interest in the product.
I go once a month cause working for Hilton it’s $40-$50 a night. Without that? I’d never go. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Same but with Chicago. I'd have a work thing during the day and instead of taking the train back that night, I'd stay, get dinner or see a show and take the early train home. But now the lowest rates are around 250 a night so I just go home.
Come to London. The best hotels are very expensive, but it isn't hard to find somewhere sanely priced at the mid-market level. The theatre tickets are cheaper, too. I'm not saying it is cheap, but it isn't insane like New York.
They wouldn’t need to pay so much for their performers if rent didn’t cost and arm and a leg.
Those sounds like the dumbest explanation I have ever heard. There are thousand of hotel rooms, and half the planet is refusing to travel to the US due to Trump's policies. There is no hotel room shortage, just a bad economy and inflation.
The real life hack is just stay in a hotel/airbnb in New Jersey and take the bus into the city. Takes a little planning to work around but beats paying an extra $50-$100 a night for an equivalent room in NYC.
It’s seriously underappreciated how New York City hotel prices prevent even relatively fluent people from visiting (at least as often as they would otherwise) for pleasure.
The last time I went to NYC I stayed near Newark and took transit in because the city itself was so freaking expensive.
Exact same boat. I used to visit 1-2 times a year for shows and restaurants, now I haven't been in four years and it's exclusively because of the hotel prices.
The new mayor should order lowering the cost of show tickets and hotel rooms so that everyone can attend shows on Broadway. This would be the equitable thing to do.
Also the airbnb ban and the right-to-shelter law being taken advantage of by international asylum seekers, although that is now not as bad as it was at the peak
Also, the cosmopolitan breed, high earners high class, the backbone of the show going crowd, is a dwindling breed
Feels like we have medical conferences in every major city in the Northeast except for New York because of this problem.
Gotta pay to play. There are hotels in NYC though at a variety of price points. Not cheap to do a weekend trip agreed tho. I find that everywhere. $600 a night for hotel room seems to be the norm once fees and taxes. Everywhere.
I can and do visit Chicago for half the price of NYC. And musicals are kind of meh, for me, they don’t have the incredible beauty of ballet or poignancy of the best straight theater.
Can someone explain why the citizens of NY keep voting for pols who want to destroy the city? You can bet everything that all of the performers and workers on Broadway voted for this. Politics is a fascinating business where people routinely vote for their own demise - no doubt