Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Shea's Performing Arts Center has announced its 2024-2025 Five Star Bank Broadway Series. It includes a mix of new and familiar shows.
The first show of the season, Some Like It Hot, opens in September.
It's followed by & Juliet, The Lion King, The Wiz, Shucked, A Beautiful Noise, (The Neil Diamond Musical), and Back to the Future.
There is also a special subscriber add-on for Hamilton, which will be shown from Oct. 10-27. Hamilton was in Buffalo twice before. Subscribers will have the first chance to buy the tickets in June; any tickets that remain will go on sale to the general public at a later date.
"Five brand new shows are coming to Buffalo as well as the revival of The Wiz and Hamilton is coming back for two weeks," said Shea's President and CEO Brian Higgins on WBEN.
Higgins is in a new role as leader of Shea's. "My role is to facilitate and provide a vision for Shea's moving into our 100th year." The centennial anniversary will be in 2026.
"Each of these shows, with roughly eight performances, bring in 24,000 people to downtown Buffalo. That means 300,000 people that otherwise wouldn't be there," he said.
Shea's has a subscriber base of 16,500. Higgins noted that it's larger than that of the NHL Buffalo Sabres, which is approximately 10,000.
The arts, Higgins said, are generally a major economic driver. Tourism was $400 million 10 years ago in Western New York. Now he said it's $3.4 billion.
"People are coming from Canada and all over Western New York into downtown Buffalo They're not only buying tickets, they're going tout to eat and staying in hotels and it's a very good thing for Buffalo."
Form information on tickets CLICK HERE.