Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance clocks up €16m in global box office receipts
Figures from trade industry journal Pollstar show that Mr Flatley’s show sold 309,492 tickets across the globe last year, performing 161 shows in 59 cities.
The 57-year-old super hoofer, who is also an accomplished flautist and a successful abstract expressionist painter, is hanging up his dancing shoes once and for all after his final stage outing in Las Vegas on St Patrick’s Day.
The Pollstar figures show that each show in 2015 grossed an average of $297,916 at the box office.
Mr Flatley added to his coffers with sellout shows in the West End of London, the continental Europe and Australia. Mr Flatley’s Lord of the Dance is ranked 99th in the Pollstar top 100 grossing touring acts for last year with Taylor Swift topping the poll with $250m.
Box office receipts are split between performer, promoter and venue operator and figures for the 3 Arena in Dublin for last year show that Lord of the Dance took €1.1m in receipts for two shows in March.
The average ticket price for a Lord of the Dance performance last year came to $56.79 while an average of 5,246 attended each gig. This year looks set to be even busier for the Lord of the Dance production and last night was performing at the Eagle Bank Arena at Fairfax in Virginia.
Before his final performance on St Patrick’s Day, Mr Flatley is slated to perform at 12 Lord of the Dance performances.
The 210 date world tour will take in 16 separate dates alone at the Fallsview Casino Resort at the Niagara Falls in Canada in May and June of this year.
The Chicago-born dancer shot to fame as lead dancer along with Jean Butler in the original Riverdance.
Mr Flatley soon parted ways with the producers of the show after a falling out to start his own dancing production show that debuted at the Point Theatre in Dublin, in 1996, to critical acclaim.
That has paid off handsomely for Mr Flatley who has a £195m (€247m) personal fortune according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List.
Mr Flatley has homes in Monaco and Barbados while he recently put his Castlehyde home in Co Cork up for sale.
He purchased the house in a near-derelict condition in 2001 for €3m and then spent more than €27m returning it to its 18th- century splendour.
In a press interview at the time of announcing the sale, Mr Flatley explained work commitments elsewhere in the world that didn’t make it feasible for him to hold on to Castlehyde.
He said: “It simply wasn’t an option going forward to have this beautiful house and yet be only able to spend a couple of weeks there every year.”
There are two home-grown acts to appear in the Pollstar top 100. U2 is ranked fourth having clocked up box office receipts of $152m last year and The Script is ranked 53rd having generated $26.7m.
Getting ready for our sold out show at the @eaglebankarena! #DangerousWorldTour pic.twitter.com/Oig3oHPcOt
— Lord of the Dance (@lordofthedance) February 26, 2016
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