Best Practices for Student Front of House Volunteers: Box Office

Whether your box office is a dedicated space with a sleek point of sale system, or a simple yet effective cash box at a folding table, you’ll need someone trustworthy and responsible to sell tickets and assist patrons. Volunteering as a box office team member is a great opportunity for students to get involved in your production in a non-artistic capacity, and to demonstrate their leadership skills. Students who wish to volunteer as box office team members must possess many traits: they must be responsible, trustworthy, detail-oriented, organized, and personable, with the ability to work independently and solve problems. If you’ve got students who would be great candidates for this role, use the following best practices to prepare them for the job.

1. Box office team members must arrive early and be dressed appropriately.

Determine what time the box office will open; at minimum, ticket sales should start no later than one hour before showtime. Students will need time to get their supplies, get set up, count their cash box and make sure they have enough change, and ensure they have adequate show programs available. They may be responsible for assisting with folding and handing out show programs before the show starts as well. Therefore, you might have box office students arrive 90 minutes prior to showtime; this allows 30 minutes of setup time and 60 minutes of ticket selling time. Feel free to adjust these times as appropriate for your production.

Students should be dressed neatly in an agreed-upon look; for example, wearing all black, white shirt and black pants, a show shirt, or a piece of school merchandise. Students should wear an accessory such as a lanyard or pin that indicates that they are a box office team member.

2. Box office team members must be great communicators.

Box office team volunteers are one of the first points of contact for audience members. They need to be able to confidently answer patron questions, such as what the show is about, how long the show is, the location of the nearest restroom, whether or not there is an intermission and if so, how long into the show it will occur, and if there are any trigger warnings regarding the show’s content. They also need to be able to step up and solve problems in a calm and efficient manner within their capacity as a student leader, while also being aware of when they should reach out to a teacher for help.

3. Box office team members must know how to accurately and responsibly handle money transactions.

If you’ve got a cash box, students must know how to keep the box tidy, how to accurately count change, and how to document the number of tickets sold, ensuring that the number of tickets sold corresponds to the amount of cash in the box, especially if you have different ticket price points. If you also have debit or credit card sales options, students will also need to accurately report the different types of payment.

Once the show starts, the box office should remain open for a short amount of time to assist any latecomers. Once an appropriate amount of time has passed, box office students should count the cash box, prepare a report of how many tickets were sold, and then place the box in a pre-approved place for safekeeping (such as locked in the drama teacher’s office or the principal’s office).

4. Box office team members need to be ready to assist with other tasks as needed.

Box office team members often double as concession assistants at intermission. There should be a separate float and cash box for concessions. (We’ll be talking more about concession team members in an upcoming article!) Box office team members may help latecomers enter the theatre in a safe and unobtrusive manner. They’re also responsible for keeping their area of the school clean and tidy, and for completing any other tasks as assigned.

As a perk, you may wish to offer students who volunteer as a box office team member the opportunity to watch part of the show when they aren’t completing tasks, or a complimentary ticket to another performance. Just be sure to instruct your students on how to enter the theatre as unobtrusively as possible, if they are entering while the show is in progress.

What are your best practices for your box office team members? Share them with us on our socials!