By James T. Hammond
jhammond@scbiznews.com
Published Feb. 10, 2010

The Peace Center for the Performing Arts has hit a home run with its three-week, 24-performance schedule of the Broadway show “Wicked,” with 47,978 tickets sold.

Only twice previously in its 20-year history has the Peace Center booked multi-week shows. The first was “Miss Saigon,” followed by “Phantom of the Opera” in 2003. That last one had 55,689 people attend and brought in $3.6 million in ticket revenue.

About 53% of the more than $4 million in ticket sales for “Wicked” came from outside Greenville County, Peace Center officials said. And they booked hotel rooms in the central business district and filled restaurants.

“Everyone wishes for a block-buster,” said Peace Center President Megan Riegel. “One comes along every eight or ten years.”

Her wish list for the next multi-week schedule includes “Lion King,” “Mary Poppins,” and “Jersey Boys,” but she hasn’t signed up the next one yet. She believes the demand exists for more such shows in the Upstate, and she knows the impact it can have on area hospitality businesses. And reaching out to other businesses is part of the Peace Center strategy.

“We went out to the Fluor campus, and sold $25,000 worth of tickets in two hours at lunchtime,” she said.

A rule of thumb for the impact of arts on hospitality and retail is 2.5 times ticket sales, Riegel said. That means the three-week run of “Wicked” would have pumped $10 million into Greenville’s economy in the form of meals in restaurants, hotel rooms, and parking. But Riegel thinks that underestimates the value of spending in the entertainment district.

Carl Sobocinski, owner of Soby’s, the Lazy Goat and Devereaux’s, said his restaurants, normally closed on Sunday nights, stayed open for the three-week run of the show and served 100 people every night.

Four hotels posted special theater rates on the Peace Center Web site; Devereaux’s restaurant offered a three-course, $35 per person dinner special.

“Traffic was outstanding,” Sobocinski said. In his restaurants, traffic was up 30%-50% over comparable nights without a show at the Peace Center.

“To have that sort of impact in the slowest season of the year is extraordinary,” Sobocinski said. “”We filled up every night the show was on, despite the ice and snow. Because of the weather, if there had been no shows, you could have fired a cannon in our restaurants without hitting anyone.”

Sobocinski said Wicked’s long run was a welcome respite from the recession-impacted norm in which business has been down 12% to 15% from pre-recession levels.

Hotels experienced a similar uptick in business. Fabian Unterzaucher, manager of the Westin Poinsett Hotel, said the cast of Wicked has taken about 30 rooms for the three-week run of the show, and people attending the show have just about filled the hotel.

Some cast members stayed in hotels with suites to prepare their own meals.

“Because of the ice, many local people decided to stay in town overnight after seeing the show,” Unterzaucher said.

The traveling version of the popular Broadway show has been so well-received, it was sold out on Superbowl Sunday.

Unterzaucher, who has worked in the hotel business in Chicago, Boston, London and Europe, said it’s unusual to have such an arts venue in a small city like Greenville.

“It’s phenomenal,” he said. “When something like this comes to town, everyone wants to see it.”

January and February are typically weak business months for hotels as well, he said, yet on one weekend during the show, the hotel was sold out, and another weekend, it was almost full.

The successful three-week run of “Wicked” likely will have intangible benefits for the Peace Center, Riegel said, in the form of bigger private gifts for the institutions not-for-profit work, and in a more receptive hearing from agents and theater companies with shows such as “Wicked.”

“The agents already know about ‘Wicked’ in Greenville,” Riegel said; she’s already getting calls about other shows that might want to come to the Peace Center.