Following Matthew's comment in the Equity/SOLT thread about wages being the largest chunk of a big West End show’s budget I wondered if we could, in the absence of published accounts from an actual show, put together a rough budget [just running-costs, not repayment of capital]. This is real back-of-an-envelope stuff but here's a start:

Expenses
Wages: £3M a year (based on Matthew's figure of 100 on the payroll at an average cost (including NIC) of £30K)
Publicity: ?
Theatre rental/contra: ?
Equipment rental: ?
Royalties: ?
[Director:
Star Performer:
Writers:
Designer:
Choreographer:
Lighting Designer:
Sound Designer:
Orchestrator:]
Producers Management Fee: ?

Income
2000-seater theatre, average ticket price £25 (conservative ticket price )
100% capacity £20M [£25x2000x8x50]
60% capacity £12M

I know there's VAT included in ticket prices so that's a big chunk off straight away (although it means that the producers can claim back all the VAT they pay out on eg wages (self-employed high earners), equipment.

Over to you guys...

You can see what a difference it makes if the show isn't a hit with full houses - had never struck me before.

I have figures from a small show from a few years ago when I considered investing in a show myself. The breakdown was as below. This is a small show in a small West End theatre - the capacity was listed as £131,590 per week - but it gives some idea of the proportion of the money spent in each area. Figures are per year. (Note that figures have been rounded to remove unwarranted precision, which is why they don't add up precisely. Note also that the salary includes only production staff; theatre staff are paid out of the money paid to the theatre.)

Salaries / Wardrobe / Orchestra = £1480k (39%)
Advertising / Print = £420k (11%)
Theatre rent (until recoupment) = £370k (10%)
Theatre contra = £740k (20%)
Royalty guarantee = £250k (6.7%)
Creative fees = £50k (1.3%)
Hires = £192k (5.1%)
Management fees = £100k (2.7%)
Sundries / Insurance / Petty cash = £155k (4.1%)

Total = ~£3750k
Capacity = ~£6843k
Break-even point: 55%

Unusually revealing breakdown of costs/takings for Equus here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml.../btequus130.xml

TheatreNet.com has a section for potential 'Angels' (investors in theatre productions) -
including an example of a detailed breakdown of costs.