The Western Canada Theatre has the final numbers on its new best-selling production ever.

Just over 12,000 people attended Elf the Musical showings at the Sagebrush Theatre between Nov. 28 and Dec. 12.

The artistic director at the theatre James MacDonald says that total is the largest the theatre has had in its 43 years.

“That’s over 15 per cent of the population of the city that will see this one production, or 10 per cent of the TNRD areat that we reach,” MacDonald says. “It’s such a tribute to the people of this city that they come out and support something like that, and we’re so proud to be offering something that’s for the family around holiday time.”

MacDonald says Elf drew about 800 more people than the theatre’s previous best-seller of Mary Poppins, back in 2015.

He adds about 6,000 of those attendees were 18 or younger.

“We have our student matinee program for every production that we do, and this one we sold out every student matinee we did, we did five,” MacDonald says. “So that’s over 3,000 kids in that one program alone. And again that’s going into so many different programs schools in our area. For most of them [the students] it’s their first exposure to theatre.”

Elf drew about 800 more people than the theatre’s previous best-seller of Mary Poppins, back in 2015.