The Florida Theatre had a much better 2021 than most venues of its size in terms of tickets sold.
According to the Top 200 theater venues annual report released by concert industry trade magazine Pollstar, The 1,865-seat Florida Theatre in Downtown Jacksonville is No. 21 among theaters worldwide.
The report shows 49,729 tickets sold and gross sales of $2,373,085.
“We started this year with Sister Hazel on January 16. We were open at just 50% of our capacity, with masks and other protocols in place. We typically sold less than half of that for months. We returned to 100% capacity in July with a sold out REO Speedwagon show, and by this fall we were doing repeated sell out business,” Numa Saisselin, president of the historic, nonprofit Florida Theatre, said in a news release.
The other competitive theater venue in the market, the Moran Theater at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, reported annual attendance of 10,331, ranking it No.130 on the Top 200 theater venues chart.
“What’s crazy is that attendance of just 49,729 got us to number 21 this year. That’s about one quarter of our typical annual attendance, and shows you the impact that the pandemic has had on the live entertainment industry. It feels good to be back in business,” Kevin Stone, Florida Theatre vice president of programming, said in the release.
By Dec. 31, the Florida Theatre will have presented more than 80 shows in 2021.
