ColumnsA theatre’s box office is the first port of call for most theatregoers – whether live in person, on the phone or increasingly online – and so is a vital gateway to their experience before they’ve even got to the show itself that they’ve taken the trouble to want to see.
It is therefore where first impressions count more than anything else. While the days of surly, officious box office workers has largely gone in the West End, thank God, the unapproachability and general rudeness and unpleasantness of many Broadway box offices remains as a vivid reminder of how things used to be; as an entrenched, unionized profession there, there’s no challenge to their (lack of) customer service, either.
With their tiny entrance foyer spaces, Broadway theatres don’t make it exactly easy for box offices to operate but even though there are usually at least two windows for them to run from, my experience is that only one of them is ever open during the daytimes, so you invariably have to wait. And wait.
The other week at New York’s huge Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, there was only one window open and the two young women at the front of the queue were having a passionate conversation with the tattooed box office man – not about the tickets they were trying to buy, but about baseball! Even when another patron tried to chivvy them along, they persisted. They are, she lamented to me, the entitled generation. And as if to prove it, someone waiting two people behind me stepped forward and asked if she could go ahead of me, as she had somewhere to get to! So do we all, I replied.
But at least in person you can see roughly what the state of play is. Ringing in to a box office, you have no idea what is going on at the other end of the line. Last week I had reserved two tickets for my brother and his wife to join me at Fuerzabruta via the show’s press office, which he had to call to pay for. Here’s his report of trying to do so:
I telephoned at 09:00 and after entering all the options, I was finally informed by a recorded message that they only open the box office at 10:00. I phoned at 10:00, 11:00, 11:15, 11:30, 11:45, 12:00, 12:15 and just now at 12:30. After listening to music and a ‘thank you for holding, we will answer soon’ for 5 mins and 19 seconds, you are informed that ‘we are experiencing a high volume of call, please hold’ and then you are cut off!
I passed on his frustration to the press office and was given a direct line for him to call the box office manager on instead and he sorted it out. But others are not so lucky. I wonder just how many customers the Roundhouse loses this way, never to return.
Of course, with a show like Fuerzabruta where demand is currently exceeding supply that’s a nice problem for them to have. But there has to be a better way to run a box office operation.
Tell us your box office horror stories below – but don’t spare your praise, either, for those that deserve it!
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Comments 8 comments
Talking of Broadway, I was impressed by the TKTS ticket booth at South Street Seaport during a visit last year. As always, there was a long wait in the queue but, as you came close to the front, a friendly woman from TKTS was going up to people to help them choose what show to see. This presumably saved time but also made the experience more pleasant. Unfortunately, the New Yorker in the ticket booth couldn’t understand British accents. We thought we had finally communicated we wanted tickets for Venus In Fur but he presented us with tickets to Disney’s family show Phineas & Ferb. The two shows couldn’t be more different, but TKTS did sort out the error without any fuss.Report comment
I have long since learned that the best way to approach box office personnel – especially in New York – is,in the words of the old adage: “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”.New York box offices react in the way they are normally approached by fellow New Yorkers,ie., rude and demanding.Of course it helps to have a British accent,but I have found so often that if you speak to them in a very polite and friendly (but not over friendly)way, more often than not they will pick up your tone and respond in a similar friendly and helpful manner. With repeated visits I have even become friends with a couple of them;Michael, formerly of the Beaumont latterly at Circle in the Square,would always find me a ticket even for a SRO show.Janice at City Center often did likewise.(She even called me from New York when the 7/7 bombings occurred).A prime example of the “softly,softly” approach was when I attempted to buy a ticket for the newly opened “Aida,the musical” on B’way.The woman in the box office told me: “Why don’t you come back and see me half hour before the curtain and I’ll find you a great seat.” Result,7th row centre aisle!
It is a two way street,and,speaking as I find, I can honestly say that I haven’t had a bad experience on a face to face basis in London (I can’t speak for NYC now as I haven’t been there in 9 years)for a very long time.Report comment
I have never had the pleaseure of going to Broadway but I have certainly had alot of visits to west end box offices and in general I have to say customer service is pretty poor. The worst offender has to be the Adelphi, I have had the displeasure of dealing directly with the Adelphi box office for Evita, Joesph, and Sweeney and everytime they have been rude beyond belief. I would now rather use a ticketing agent than have to deal with them again.Report comment
I usually have excellent service from box office staff at WE theatres. I try to avoid agencies if possible. But it does pay to be polite! For example on Sat I arrived at the Noel Coward theatre at 12.15ish and asked ” I know this is a silly question at this time but you don’t by any chance have one day seat left for tonight do you?” The girl said “yes I do actually” and I got a £10 seat at the back of the dress circle with an excellent view. If I had been agressive or impolite I am sure she could have said “no!”Report comment
I totally agree! NYC box offices are generally damn rude, and it’s take the ticket I’m offering you or leave it! I always therefore whenever possible will book on line, and print at home!
In terms of London box offices, the National Theatre is generally a total nightmare. A couple of weeks ago I was trying to collect tickets for the car crash that is Alan Bennett’s latest offering and there was a couple asking intricate details about local places to eat. There were three people faffing behind the counter and just one person serving. She rattled on about all of the places along the southbank and took ten minutes to do so – she did however fail to mention any of the places to eat at the national itself!
The box office at the Menier is a disaster! They have one person dealing with ticket sales, collections, ice cream sales, coat drop offs and programme sales! I pointed out that their website software wasn’t up to date as it won’t accept MasterCard debit cards. I was told it was my problem and if I didn’t want to pay using a credit card they would accept then I shouldn’t bother booking!
The all time best box office EVER and should win an award for it, is Penny at the Jermyn Street Theatre. She is always passionate about the theatre, polite friendly and gives the best ever customer service I have ever recieved in a theatre box office! Bravo Penny!Report comment
My comment isn’t so much about a bad box office experience, quite the opposite in fact, more about the high charges when faced with booking online. In my experience calling the box office often leads to a much better customer experience than booking online and fees and charges are non-existent. Recently, when trying to book a couple of christmas shows at the macrobert in Stirling the sales adviser moved heaven and earth to get me good seats for both shows. On the day of a show for my 3yo we turned up at the wrong time, missed the start of the show and they allowed me to come back that afternoon instead as they’d had a couple of cancellations due to illness.
I love going to the theatre. I go to the theatre a lot. For the right show distance is no object. So I’ve a fair bit of experience in dealing with the various booking systems of theatres, large and small and my biggest bug-bear with them is the way that they sell their tickets.
We live in a digital age where on-line self service is the norm; for businesses it’s cheaper and for us it’s usually more convenient. But not the theatre booking experience. From woefully poor websites to rip-off booking charges I’ve almost given up in seeing plays because the online experience was so bad.
In my industry average transaction costs are web: 0.15p; phone: £2.83; face-to-face £8.62. I’d love to know what the costs are in theatre. And I’d love to know why we are charged an online booking fee for a transaction that actually saves the theatre money.
I tried to buy 8 tickets last week for The National Theatre of Scotland’s highly acclaimed Black Watch. the tickets are £27 or so. EACH ticket attracts a £3.30 booking fee so my overall charges were the price of another ticket, for a transaction I had done all the work for. I expect postage and a credit card charge would have been added too.
I tweeted @NTSOnline about the charges and their response was astounding
NatTheatreScotland
@corrinnedouglas Being a theatre without walls means using external box office.We know it can be a kicker and offer options to bookers.
I had to go on and ask what the options were.
I bought tickets at the tail end of 2012 to see a touring production perform in a large city theatre. Nice website, big ‘buy tickets’ button and I was taken through to a nice menu that gave me a range on ticket choices and offered me a plan to either select my seats of have them chosen for me. Crucially the seats taken weren’t blanked out so I was stabbing in the dark unless I clicked the ‘choose best avail’ option.
So seats selected, off to checkout and BOOM, £2 booking transaction fee and £1 seat restoration fee (preselected – I had to opt out) so my £31 seats were now £34.
I went back to the beginning, no warning of additional fees to come so back to scratch on the home page.
I found the box office number, negotiated the menu and selected 3 for the box office.
Theatres, your box office is your income stream, always, always, always, make it option 1.
My call was answered quickly and a helpful man, who wasn’t in the least put out by my confession that I couldn’t find my card, just calmly input my details while I turned my house upside down. The same details that I would have been charged £2 for providing online.
He then offered my 3 seating options and after discussion we settled on Row C in the middle. Best I’d been offered online was Row F to the side.
The phone call cost me pennies, I got far superior experience and better seats to boot. So in summary my online experience is more akin to Ryanair and face to face or phone BA all the way!Report comment
Im not sure about the UK, but, in regional US theaters the fees are how we pay the software providers and pay the fees levied on us by the credit card companies. In some states you cannot,by law, charge the customers ‘Credit Card Fees’. BUT, you can charge them ‘Service Charges’ or ‘Handling Fees’. ‘Seat Restoration’ fee was probably legit as it was optional and grant providers have very specific rules about fundraising things theyve agreed to pay part of. And arent nice new seats a good thing? Most box office software Ive worked with provide fee information well before the final click and many theater websites try and warn the customers early on as its a fee we dont want to charge you, but have to. Most companies I know of charge a fee online AND over the phone. If you’re buying from a house that features touring or one night events the fees are a big chunk of how they are paid. Otherwise the event producers would have to increase the ticket price. Why are show/concert souvenirs soooo expensive? Most venue rental agreements give ‘the house’ 30% or more of what the renter makes at the souvenir stand.
Theaters that run their own box offices often add the fees when what theyd like to do is raise the ticket prices (usually for the 1st time in years, US nonprofit theaters are often charging %50 what they should to cover basic costs and cover the rest w/donations and grants) but are afraid of the anguished cries of the subscribers.
Why 4 empty windows but only 1 ticket agent? Huh, four windows, who am I kidding,2 windows and dodgy lights w/no heat or AC!? Theaters have lovely auditoriums but lousy office set ups with Box Office getting the closet sized worst of the lot! Its one ticket agent because (at least regionally,Im not unionized)even tho we are usually the lowest paid employees of the company/facility the bosses are loathe to hire more even for a sold out show. Those 3 people behind the ticket agent ‘faffing about’ might very well be Ticket Agents lollygagging, they could also be interns who use the Box Office to check their email, stage hands hanging out on break, actors picking up paychecks or Business Managers telling you why they cant afford help for that sold out show…and dont most people buy online anyway? Ive seen all of those and not just at my box office.Report comment
By and large the Box Offices in the UK actually want to sell you a ticket and give you the best possible seat. Occasionally, one comes up with a New York like experience ( the Adelphi , The Garrick and even the Duchess come to mind there) where the last thing the treasurer wishes to do is have a happy customer. In the subsidized sector, the National, Donmar, Royal Court and Almeida are all fine, but the Lyric Hammersmith is a disaster. I recently attended a performance of Desire Under the Elms which was not well sold and discovered that my allocatted seat was to be next to a very very fat man whose stomach was already hanging over the arm rest. I went downstairs and asked kindly if I could be reassigned and was told no. That the performance was fully booked. I said , given that the performance is about to begin and that the stalls were 2/3 empty and it looked as if the situation in the Circle was similar, that perhaps I could simply wait at the back and once the performance began I would move into an available seat. Grudingly the man at the computer looked and printed out a ticket for me and handed it to me – I thanked him. I went upstairs to discover that the seat he had given me was between two other singles and that the three of us were clumped together in a single row ( which was otherwise unoccupied) . I’d had similar luck with Lyric Hammersmith before and given that the production was a disappointment, I have simply crossed them off my list. If they dont want my custom I have other theatres in the greater London area that do.Report comment