Steve Roberts Interview: When Box Office Technology Goes Wrong & Future Predictions
Title
Steve Roberts Interview: When Box Office Technology Goes Wrong & Future Predictions
Date
4 October 2018
Description
Oral history interview with Steve Roberts, Deputy Box Office Manager at the Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall and a long-serving member of staff since 1999.
What's the story?
Having previously worked in Nottingham’s lace industry, Steve Roberts first joined the Theatre Royal in 1999 as a Box Office Clerk and where he has since progressed to the role of Deputy Box Office Manager.
This role involves over-seeing all the box office staff, as well putting all the shows onto the computerised ticketing system, in order for staff to sell the tickets.
Throughout his time at the venue Steve has been directly involved in some of the biggest changes in how people purchase their tickets for shows at the Theatre Royal.
In this interview Steve talks about the problems when box office technology goes wrong, as well as discussing future trends for booking theatre tickets, with box office staff more aligned to customer service, rather than actually selling tickets:
Well, we can’t sell. It’s happened a few times. Luckily in the last few times we’ve been able to go online. It’s worked online and we’ve been able to see a seating plan so we can certainly say what seats were free, but no, nowadays technology: if it’s down, it’s down. It’s happened a few times. And we’ve got the shows in and we’ve got them up and running, but if people come to collect tickets, we can’t look to see, so we have, sort of, done it through the online and just looked to see what seats are free and you’ll have to sit there and taken some money. Touch wood it doesn’t happen – very rarely. No we don’t fix it, it’s all done with an email or phone the computer software people, or if it’s Nottingham City Council IT Department, then they would fix it as well. And the IT from Nottingham City Council do come in. They won’t have anything to do with the actual box office program, because that’s a different company altogether. Tessitura is a box office and marketing system really. I would say it’s more a marketing than an actual box office system, which enables us to sell tickets virtually and then all the offshoots and all the reports it does. It keeps people’s customers’ data. I don’t know why Tessitura was chosen. I think the powers that be thought it was a good system. There’s lots of box office systems out there. It was before my time you had to rip little tickets out of a book, even though I did work with somebody who’s retired now who did actually work here when you ripped a ticket out of a book or something, I’m not quite sure how that system worked, but it was something along those lines and they all sat there doing their knitting in between telephone calls. It wouldn’t happen nowadays.
The future will be printing tickets at home, which, obviously will save us a vast expense of having to provide tickets, so that’s the next step forward, I would imagine and I can see that the internet’s not going to go away and eventually it’s going to be nearly the norm to book online, so my assumption is that the Box Office will get smaller or become more of a customer service provider “I’m stuck online, I can’t book my tickets”, that type of thing as opposed to physically selling. My assumption is that my sort of a job, you’re still going to want people to put tickets online. So you’ve still got to get somebody to do that side of it and even in cinemas now, there’s a machine in the foyer where you get your ticket, and at railway stations as well, isn’t there? So, I don’t know whether that’s a technology theatres can use, but I assume one day there will be a machine in the foyer. Since I started 18 years ago in the Box Office, we virtually sold tickets, but now I am on the phone saying “If you click on here and click on there”, you know. So they’re actually helping them buy tickets online as well. So that’s changed in my 18 years, whereas there was no online booking when I started. You’d either got phones or counter. They were your two choices. But now they have become more customer service personnel as opposed to box office.
This role involves over-seeing all the box office staff, as well putting all the shows onto the computerised ticketing system, in order for staff to sell the tickets.
Throughout his time at the venue Steve has been directly involved in some of the biggest changes in how people purchase their tickets for shows at the Theatre Royal.
In this interview Steve talks about the problems when box office technology goes wrong, as well as discussing future trends for booking theatre tickets, with box office staff more aligned to customer service, rather than actually selling tickets:
Well, we can’t sell. It’s happened a few times. Luckily in the last few times we’ve been able to go online. It’s worked online and we’ve been able to see a seating plan so we can certainly say what seats were free, but no, nowadays technology: if it’s down, it’s down. It’s happened a few times. And we’ve got the shows in and we’ve got them up and running, but if people come to collect tickets, we can’t look to see, so we have, sort of, done it through the online and just looked to see what seats are free and you’ll have to sit there and taken some money. Touch wood it doesn’t happen – very rarely. No we don’t fix it, it’s all done with an email or phone the computer software people, or if it’s Nottingham City Council IT Department, then they would fix it as well. And the IT from Nottingham City Council do come in. They won’t have anything to do with the actual box office program, because that’s a different company altogether. Tessitura is a box office and marketing system really. I would say it’s more a marketing than an actual box office system, which enables us to sell tickets virtually and then all the offshoots and all the reports it does. It keeps people’s customers’ data. I don’t know why Tessitura was chosen. I think the powers that be thought it was a good system. There’s lots of box office systems out there. It was before my time you had to rip little tickets out of a book, even though I did work with somebody who’s retired now who did actually work here when you ripped a ticket out of a book or something, I’m not quite sure how that system worked, but it was something along those lines and they all sat there doing their knitting in between telephone calls. It wouldn’t happen nowadays.
The future will be printing tickets at home, which, obviously will save us a vast expense of having to provide tickets, so that’s the next step forward, I would imagine and I can see that the internet’s not going to go away and eventually it’s going to be nearly the norm to book online, so my assumption is that the Box Office will get smaller or become more of a customer service provider “I’m stuck online, I can’t book my tickets”, that type of thing as opposed to physically selling. My assumption is that my sort of a job, you’re still going to want people to put tickets online. So you’ve still got to get somebody to do that side of it and even in cinemas now, there’s a machine in the foyer where you get your ticket, and at railway stations as well, isn’t there? So, I don’t know whether that’s a technology theatres can use, but I assume one day there will be a machine in the foyer. Since I started 18 years ago in the Box Office, we virtually sold tickets, but now I am on the phone saying “If you click on here and click on there”, you know. So they’re actually helping them buy tickets online as well. So that’s changed in my 18 years, whereas there was no online booking when I started. You’d either got phones or counter. They were your two choices. But now they have become more customer service personnel as opposed to box office.
Type
Oral interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers: Andrew Breakwell & Julia Holmes
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton
