Frankenstein Breaks Broadway Price Barrier at $450???

If you sometimes worry about the cost of top tickets in the West End, just be thankful you don’t live in New York. The highest price for a seat in the upcoming Broadway musical Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein will be a staggering $450. This is $100 higher than Tony award-winner Jersey Boys - set to transfer to here in March 2008 (See News, 9 Jul 2007) - is charging for its most expensive tickets. Even with the pound being at its strongest level against the dollar for many years, this still equates to over £220. In London, the most you would pay for a theatre ticket is £60, at either The Lord of the Rings or Spamalot. This is only marginally more expensive than the regular price tickets for Young Frankenstein, which weigh in at $120, or £59.

The relatively new technique of offering “premium” tickets – now widespread on Broadway since Mel Brooks’ The Producers in 2001 - has led to rising ticket prices in general, but this new show has gone one step further and inaugurated “premier” seats on the popular weekend dates. Some London theatres also have different prices at the weekend, but the scale of the increase is much smaller. Still, the exorbitant face value of these premier tickets is seen as being “a mark of confidence” by American theatre website Playbill.com. The eagerly-awaited Young Frankenstein is a new Mel Brooks work, based on his 1974 film, and will open at the Hilton Theater in New York on 8 November 2007.

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