Confessions of a Box Office Manager: A big double booking

The pass door between the foyer and the auditorium swings open with a flourish and Timothy, our campest -and under normal circumstances, funniest – usher, stands framed in the doorway. He stands with his hands on his hips and his eyes blazing just long enough to be seen as Making An Entrance, before sashaying towards me. He's bellowing "Well dear, all hell is breaking loose in the dress!" He is actually RADA-trained, so that proclamation comes out so loud that a lady buying advance tickets at another box office window turns to stare in alarm.

I thought it was odd that more than five minutes past the scheduled performance time we still hadn't heard the clearance-to-start announcement from the covering duty manager over the walkie-talkie. Timothy may be a trifle hyperbolic, to be fair he's the kind of bloke that can turn ordering a pub lunch into something from Strindberg, but something clearly is wrong.

"I've got about five hundred people standing around gormlessly, Petronella The Clueless is tearing her hair out, nobody knows WHAT'S going on……" yells Tim. I take a deep breath and refrain from pointing out that there can't be five hundred people milling about, as the dress circle doesn't seat that many, and that when the public is within earshot it might be advisable to call the duty manager by his real name of Peter, rather than the not-entirely-respectful epithet of 'Petronella The Clueless'.

"So, we have a number of doubles do we?" I ask instead.

"Doubles! Triples!?! It's a NIGHTMARE in there!!"

Double bookings happen for a variety of reasons: it can be patrons failing to read their tickets and turning up on the wrong night; it could be that they were sold tickets for the wrong date by their ticket agent or, heaven forbid, by the box office (that's why we have that sign up saying "please check your tickets…yadda yadda yadda….." that nobody ever reads); it could be that a ticket agent heard the wrong seat numbers over the phone from the box office (substituting row F for row S is a common error); in some instances it can even be that the customers have inadvertently wandered into the wrong theatre and that the ticket taker checked only the seat numbers and performance date but not the venue. Either way, this one sounds like a fairly giant cock-up on somebody's part, and as the house is almost sold out it needs to be sorted quickly and accurately.

"Have you got some tickets to show me please, Tim?"

"Well, I've got these", and he lays four tickets on the counter. They look fine to me: issued by us, correct date, dress circle, all bearing the same booking reference number.

"And the ones they are doubling with…?" (Come ON, there is a theatre full of people waiting for the show to start…)

"Well, it's a group I think…..they all seem to know each other…."

"OK but I would need to see at least some of their tickets….."

Suddenly the walkie-talkie on the desk next to me makes a sort of electronic farting noise, and I can hear the tinny tones of a stressed-sounding Petronella, I mean Peter, the duty manager:

"Management to box office? Er…Over?!"

"Go ahead, Peter…"

"Er…we have a problem in the dress circle?? OVER?!"

"Yes, just looking at it now."

Thinking as fast as is possible at the end of a 10 hour shift, I pull up a computer report of all the patrons booked in for tonight's show. There are only two group bookings listed, one is in the upper circle, so it won't be that; the other is for 52 in the stalls via a major ticket agency.

I re-check the tickets Tim has placed in front of me: dress circle E12-15. Interestingly, this agency group has those seat numbers but in the stalls. We may be onto something here. I clumsily attempt to multi-task, and call the duty manager on the walkie while speed-dialling the ticket agency.

The phone is answered first and it is quickly established that on their system the agent has confirmed 52 dress circle seats, while on OUR system those exact seat numbers are allocated to them but in the stalls, hence the double booking.

"Can you check the Stalls for me, Peter?" I yell into the walkie talkie, "is there a large gap around rows D through to G?"

"Hang on, OVER!" he responds breathlessly (I can actually hear his feet hitting the steps as he runs between the two levels.) "Right I'm here, over. And yes there's a lot of empty seats down here. I thought we were House Full, over?"

"That's where the group from the dress should be. They all need to be moved down. Really sorry. Will check why the error occurred," and finally, reluctantly: "OVER!!"

Next I take out the printed callover sent this morning from the relevant agency and it does indeed state dress circle, so this mistake really should have come to light earlier in the day when my colleague was checking everything for tonight's show. Words Will Be Had tomorrow. Luckily, this sort of thing seldom happens, but it is still embarrassing and annoying for everyone involved. Not only is there the upheaval of moving a large number of people around the theatre at short notice, but the performance will be starting up to fifteen minutes late.

Timothy bows flamboyantly (why's he even bowing?! It's not as though he was much help…) and disappears back through the pass door to assist with moving the group patrons to the stalls.

So… the box office will be on tonight's show report as the reason for the late commencement, and I will have to give the team a stern pep talk re the importance of accuracy and double checking allocations. That's never fun. But hey, nobody died.

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