User:Razr Nation/Box Office research

A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket.

By extension, the term is frequently used, especially in the context of the film industry, as a synonym for the amount of business a particular production, such as a film or theatre show, receives. The term can also mean factors which may influence this amount, as in the phrases "good box office" and "bad box office".

Usage
Box office business can be measured in terms of the number of people who see it or the amount of money raised by ticket sales (revenue). The projection and analysis of these earnings is very important for the creative industries and often a source of interest for fans. This is predominant in the Hollywood movie industry.

Some complain that industry focus on profit has diminished the attention given to film as an art form. However, analysis of the financial success of films is very influential for the production and funding of future works.

Box Office data in Latin America
In Latin American countries, some industries, like music and concert tours, have a minimal or almost noexistent box office data quantification. Only some artists such as Ricardo Arjona, Shakira and Enrique Iglesias has been properly covered by magazines like Billboard with data from their concerts, but only on the United States and Puerto Rico, mainly, and then sometimes other cities and venues.

With such information, it's not possible to correctly show how the concert has gone commercially. So, I studied patterns and ways to best estimate the total concert box office data, using a formula showe below.

Calculating attendance and revenue

 * For the venues, capacity and attendance
 * 1) Information about the venues
 * 2) Capacity of the venues
 * 3) Comparison of other artists who presented a show in such venues
 * 4) Comparison of Billboard data, if exist, of artists in such venue
 * 5) Research on newspapers and third party verifiable sources about information for the concert, tickets sold, etc.


 * For the estimated box office
 * 1) Comparison of revenue from covered concerts on the venue by Billboard, and the ticket prices reported by the magazine or other sources
 * 2) Comparison of past records of data, if exist.
 * 3) If information regarding at least one concert date covered by Billboard exist, a formula to estimate the average ticket price is used, and, then, the resultant number will be multiplied to the estimated attendance.

Tools
I've roughly mentioned the tools I use to calculate the estimated box office. Now, i'll explain each one of them.
 * 1) Estimated Attendance (abbreviated EA): The estimated attendance is basically the estimated number of people who attended to the concert show. The number can be taken from news, considering the size and capacity of the venue, similar shows made by other artists on the venue, etc.
 * 2) Estimated Ticket Price or Average Ticker Price (abbreviated ETP or ATP): The estimated ticket price, average ticket price or estimated cost per ticket is the average amount of US dollars per ticket sold. It is calculated by dividing the total gross revenue of a concert by its total attendance. It is important to note that the gross must be from the dates for which attendance will be used.
 * 3) Attendance Ratio (abbreviated AR): The attendance ratio is a number between 0 and 1 that contains the relation between the quantity of people who attended the show, and the total tickets or seats available on the venue. It is calculated dividing the total attendance by the total tickets or seats available. if the numbers are the same, the ratio then is 1, which means that the concerts are being sold out.

The ETP is the key instrument and the most difficult to correctly craft. As of now, i'm developing a better way to craft a most comprehensive ETP or another supporting tool that will make the calculations more accurate. Of course, this tools will only give a close information on how the tour has gone commercially rather than telling exactly how many dollars the show grossed.

The formula
The used formula is crafted with this information:
 * With information given by Billboard:
 * 1) Divide revenue by the number of attendance.
 * 2) If more than one concert data is given, do the latter as many times as concerts are given
 * 3) With information about attendance given by Billboard, we'll calculate a attendance ratio. This is the most likely percentage of total capacity. This "attendance ratio" varies from 0 to 1.0. As an example, Ricardo Arjona, on his Metamorfosis World Tour has a attendance ratio of 1.0. The attendance ratio helps to craft a more suitable and realist list.
 * 4) Then, average all results to get the average ticket price.

If data from Billboard is not available, an extensive research will be needed. So, to find a close number and reach an ATP, we'll need to find the next information for at least two concerts:
 * Without information given by Billboard:
 * 1) Total capacity
 * 2) Total attendance
 * 3) Ticket prices
 * 4) Percentage of each section (means 10% is Diamond, 15% VIP, 60% general and so on.). Its enough to find this information to one concert to get an ATP that could be usable. Without this information, the AVP we'll get would no work at a very suitable error margin, and thus the number we'll get will be unrealistic and too far from real numbers.

The formula is:
 * $$ Gross = EA * ETP * AR$$

Effectiveness of the method
As of now, the method has proven very successful.

By example, Ricardo Arjona had a show on the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles. Attendance was 13,760. Revenue was $1,211,600. Before official billboard data were available, if we used the ETP to calculate box score with 13,760, the result was $1,030,348, which represents an error margin of 14,95%. This error margin is pretty close, actually.

This error margin vary. It can be 15% higher or lower than the data provided by Billboard. So, when making the final numbers, all margins equalize and make a close number.

List of concerts which box office and attendance was calculated using this method
It is important to note that this method is, in Wikipedia, considered original research. So, all i do using this method cannot yet be used on any Wikipedia article.

On working process:
 * Brava! World Tour by Paulina Rubio.
 * Quinto Piso Tour by Ricardo Arjona.