Future of Box Offices

Shelley – a couple of things come to mind for this, although our situation is not exactly the same.  We don’t have anything other than Tessitura for our tickets and education reservations, but we also don’t have a major schedule of classes – we have a dozen or so programs a year that require registration.  Two items from our perspective:

1. We have an open box office counter near the front doors. Because it is just open and there are no windows, they FREEZE in the winter.  We buy several space heaters and the poor wonderful box office associated wear fingerless gloves, but it isn’t the ideal situation (obviously), and VERY difficult and extremely costly to fix with the original architecture. Obviously this would not be a concern if you are not in a cold climate.
   1. Side note, at the last location I worked at the architect had originally build two sets of doors to get into the entrance lobby, but they were cut for budget reasons – that lobby was also freezing, but luckily the box office there was enclosed.
2. There was not “gate” at the end of the counter to close so that associates could get in and out, but patrons couldn’t just wander in.  As a result patrons will occasionally want to see the associates’ screens and wander on behind the associates into the box office area.  Obviously this is not ideal, and could be a safety concern were we located in a more metropolitan area.

These were not things anyone thought of, and from a few other weird set up things of the box office, the architect did not understand at all the nature of theatre sales vs. movie theaters from the 1950s.  If you guys are thinking about this so closely, you will probably avoid it.

Otherwise, the openness fits  our brand very well, so we have not taken great pains to figure out how to enclose it – with the agreement of the box office managers and associates in the conversation.

Jen

From: Tessitura Ticketing Forum [mailto:forums-ticketing@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Beau Vigushin
Sent: Thursday, August 3, 2017 5:38 PM
To: Jen Buzzell <buzzellj@sigtheatre.org>
Subject: Re: [Tessitura Ticketing Forum] Future of Box Offices

Hey Shelley,

Are you attending TLCC next week? Would be great to catch up if you are, as we at Arts Centre Melbourne are going on a journey to do something a little different. :)

Beau.

What do you foresee in the Box Office of the future? We're building an extension to house a new theater. What should we include in the Box Office? Our architect envisions one long counter when patrons enter the building. It will be sectioned off for class registration, ticket sales, general questions, merchandise sales, etc. Do you have a set up like this? What are the pros and cons? How does the Box Office spot differ on show days versus non show days? Is there a designated spot or does everyone get trained on everything? Our class registration is a different system than Tessitura so the front desk personnel currently are not trained on Tessitura. Thanks for your advice!

This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Ticketing Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Ticketing forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!

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Shelley – a couple of things come to mind for this, although our situation is not exactly the same.  We don’t have anything other than Tessitura for our tickets and education reservations, but we also don’t have a major schedule of classes – we have a dozen or so programs a year that require registration.  Two items from our perspective:

1. We have an open box office counter near the front doors. Because it is just open and there are no windows, they FREEZE in the winter.  We buy several space heaters and the poor wonderful box office associated wear fingerless gloves, but it isn’t the ideal situation (obviously), and VERY difficult and extremely costly to fix with the original architecture. Obviously this would not be a concern if you are not in a cold climate.
   1. Side note, at the last location I worked at the architect had originally build two sets of doors to get into the entrance lobby, but they were cut for budget reasons – that lobby was also freezing, but luckily the box office there was enclosed.
2. There was not “gate” at the end of the counter to close so that associates could get in and out, but patrons couldn’t just wander in.  As a result patrons will occasionally want to see the associates’ screens and wander on behind the associates into the box office area.  Obviously this is not ideal, and could be a safety concern were we located in a more metropolitan area.

These were not things anyone thought of, and from a few other weird set up things of the box office, the architect did not understand at all the nature of theatre sales vs. movie theaters from the 1950s.  If you guys are thinking about this so closely, you will probably avoid it.

Otherwise, the openness fits  our brand very well, so we have not taken great pains to figure out how to enclose it – with the agreement of the box office managers and associates in the conversation.

Jen

From: Tessitura Ticketing Forum [mailto:forums-ticketing@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Beau Vigushin
Sent: Thursday, August 3, 2017 5:38 PM
To: Jen Buzzell <buzzellj@sigtheatre.org>
Subject: Re: [Tessitura Ticketing Forum] Future of Box Offices

Hey Shelley,

Are you attending TLCC next week? Would be great to catch up if you are, as we at Arts Centre Melbourne are going on a journey to do something a little different. :)

Beau.

What do you foresee in the Box Office of the future? We're building an extension to house a new theater. What should we include in the Box Office? Our architect envisions one long counter when patrons enter the building. It will be sectioned off for class registration, ticket sales, general questions, merchandise sales, etc. Do you have a set up like this? What are the pros and cons? How does the Box Office spot differ on show days versus non show days? Is there a designated spot or does everyone get trained on everything? Our class registration is a different system than Tessitura so the front desk personnel currently are not trained on Tessitura. Thanks for your advice!

This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Ticketing Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Ticketing forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!

This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Ticketing Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Ticketing forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!