BOSTON (AP) – High-kicking Rockettes and Disney’s “The Lion King” have sold so well that local shows like Boston Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” are scrambling to meet revenue projections in the all-important holiday season.

Many local shows are running behind last year’s pace, and the Boston Pops even canceled three holiday concerts because of poor ticket sales for the Symphony Hall shows.

The market shift, observers say, has been the arrival of “The Lion King” at the Opera House this summer, and the decision by the Wang Center for the Performing Arts to bring in “The Radio City Christmas Spectacular.”

To make room for the Rockettes, the 3,600-seat Wang pushed out “The Nutcracker” at the end of its run last year. The Boston Ballet production opens Friday at the 1,640-seat Colonial Theatre.

“You can’t turn on the TV without seeing Radio City ads,” Mark Volpe, managing director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which includes the Pops, told the Boston Sunday Globe.

“They’re spending dozens of times what we’re spending. And they’re outsiders. It’s the same thing as when Wal-Mart comes in.”

Radio City officials say they’ve sold more tickets than expected. Josiah Spaulding Jr., Wang’s president, says the show has been a savior for the center, which has struggled recently with deficits. He’s going to allow food in the theater for the first time when the show opens a week from Friday.

“It’s a tradition in New York with Radio City to have popcorn, and we’d like that tradition to continue here,” Spaulding told the Globe.

Last year at the Wang, “The Nutcracker” sold 139,000 tickets, and the company projects it will sell about half that amount at the smaller Colonial. It has lowered its revenue goal from $6.6 million last year to about $4.4 million. The show typically earns up to 30 percent of Boston Ballet’s annual budget.

Emerson College’s Cutler Majestic Theatre earlier this year decided not to bring back last year’s Trinity Rep production of “A Christmas Carol,” which had 32 shows. Instead, it will present “Christmas from Dublin Starring the Three Irish Tenors,” a smaller production with just four shows.

“There is a limit to how many tickets people in New England can purchase,” said Lance Olsen, the Majestic Theatre’s manager. “‘The Lion King’ is a wonderful production in a large theater. That’s a lot of tickets.”

“The Lion King,” a Disney property being presented by Clear Channel Entertainment, which owns 1,200 radio stations and 775,000 billboards nationwide, has grossed close to $20 million since July.

AP-ES-11-21-04 1043EST