Business and House Management

1. Business and House Management Day Three

2. Tickets: Producing & Selling • Some school theater programs invest a great deal of time in fundraisers, but your best fundraiser is SELLING TICKETS because it serves a dual purpose. Not only do you gain INCOME, you secure an AUDIENCE for the performance. • Handling the actual tickets can be a monumental task but they must be treated just like CASH. The amount of money spent running an academic or community theater for a season can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Most of that money comes from TICKET SALES, so it's important that every dollar is accounted for. This accountability starts in the BOX OFFICE.

3. Some academic theaters sell tickets only on performance nights, and seating is GENERAL ADMISSION. In this case, inexpensive CARNIVAL TYPE ROLLS OF TICKETS can be used, with one side going to the PATRON, and the other side kept by the USHERS for a later STUB COUNT. Make sure you have DIFFERENT COLOR tickets for each night's performance. • Many academic theaters do ADVANCE sales, usually once during the day, often during LUNCH HOURS, and for an HOUR before each performance.

4. First, make sure the TICKET CO-ORDINATOR is in the box office for each selling period. If discrepancies come up, that is the person who is held accountable for any OVERAGE (more money in the cash box than there should have been) or UNDERAGE (less money in the cash box than there should have been), for that selling period. And it's always good to have THREE people at the box office area. One to GET TICKETS, one to deal with the CUSTOMER, and one to handle the CASH.

5. Next, you need a LOCKABLE CASH BOX with money in it to start out the selling period. $60 is a good starting figure, with the money broken up like so: • 1 roll of QUARTERS ($10) 15 - $1 BILLS ($15) • 3 - $5 BILLS ($15) 2 - $10 BILLS ($20) For a total of $60

6. Once the ticket sales are started, keep the above denominations of bills in the ticket box, for the START OF EACH NEW SALES PERIOD, with the $10 in quarters being kind of flexible. Deposit any money above the $60 in the SCHOOL SAFE, or another SECURE PLACE at the END OF EACH SALES PERIOD. • One EXTREMELY important thing to ALWAYS do is to NOT MIX THE DENOMINATIONS of bills. Always keep all the 1's together, the 5's together, the 10's together, the 20’s UNDER THE CASH TRAY, and the change in the change area

7. If your theater pre-sells tickets, especially RESERVED SEAT TICKETS, you need to have a process to handle that. And to complicate things, many theaters have DIFFERENT PRICE tickets. They are: • FULL PRICE Tickets: These are for adults and usually the most common ticket sold. • DISCOUNTED TICKETS: These can be for senior citizens, children (usually under 12), group sales, students who have a student activity pass or Scout Troupe. • COMPLIMENTARY TICKETS: These are given to people like administrators, school board, people who donated to a patron program like "Friends of Theater", critics, someone who bought advertising in the program, or people who made some other sizable donation to the theater program. The ONLY person who gets to decide who gets comps or discounted tickets is your SPONSOR!

8. It costs a few bucks, but it's necessary to have 2 rubber stamps made up, one that says "DISC" for a DISCOUNTED TICKET, and one that says "COMP" for a COMPLIMENTARY ticket. Be sure to stamp each special ticket on the TICKET STUB YOUR USHERS COLLECT so when you do a stub count after the performance, your books will balance. • The tickets themselves can be produced modestly on a COPY MACHINE using card stock, on a COMPUTERIZED SYSTEM your theater can purchase, or they can be secured through TICKET COMPANIES which specialize in this task.

9. Whatever you choose, your tickets should look PROFESSIONAL, and should NOT BE EASILY REPRODUCED. If you use general admission tickets, you will make life easier if they are NUMBERED so you can tell how many you have sold at any given moment. Numbering the tickets is also another SECURITY MEASURE. Even though some schools do not have an official box office, they do have a designated person to coordinate ticket sales.

10. Distributing tickets to students to sell makes keeping track of the number of tickets sold almost impossible, so we do not recommend this practice. • Providing ADVANCE TICKET ORDER FORMS to the students is a much better idea. They can take the orders from their friends and families, collect the money, and then turn the order form into the BUSINESS MANAGER or the TICKET CO-ORDINATOR, who will in turn DISTRIBUTE the tickets.

11. Your tickets, like your flyers and news releases, must display ACCURATE INFORMATION. The tickets must state the TERMS OF THE SALE. For instance: NO REFUNDS OR EXCHANGES is a common policy for all professional theaters and it’s a good policy for your business manager to adopt as well. That should be clearly stated on the ticket along with show TITLE, DATE, CURTAIN TIME, ADDRESS OF THE THEATER, AND PRICE.

12. Make sure the different performance dates are printed on DIFFERENT COLOR card stock, for instance, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Use DIFFERENT COLORS for the NEXT SHOW, and try not to repeat COLORS during a SEASON. Make BLANK SEATING CHARTS for your theater, and use a marker the SAME COLOR AS THAT NIGHT’S TICKET to mark off seats as tickets are sold. And one way to keep the ticket line moving when a lot of people are standing in line to buy tickets, and the play is about to begin, is to have the ticket seller SUGGEST SEATING to the patrons.

13. Handling tickets and tabulating the sales is the main job of the TICKET CO-ORDINATOR. The ticket coordinator is responsible for keeping track of all the money taken in at the box office. He or she also needs to be well informed about THEATER POLICIES, and about the SHOWS they are selling tickets for because people will have questions when they call to order tickets. They will want to know the RUNNING TIME of the show, what AGES it is suitable for, what’s the STORY LINE of the play.

14. Decide ahead of time whether you will hold tickets WITHOUT PAYMENT. As we said earlier, this is RISKY BUSINESS, but if you do allow patrons to reserve without payment, you’ll need to inform them that these tickets must be picked up at least 30 MINUTES BEFORE THE SHOW TIME. Informing them of this policy when they call then allows you to SELL THE TICKET TO SOMEONE ELSE if they are not picked up on time.

15. Ticket prices vary from school to school. If you are hesitant to increase your ticket price, just check the local cinema. You’ll find that patrons are usually willing to pay more for a LIVE PERFORMANCE than for a film. Art is a BUSINESS.