knrakes
Kristy Rakes
A blog to document my summer working as Box Office Supervisor for First Niagara Pavilion.
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Mother nature doesn't always cooperate with shows!
Looking back at the large number of shows at First Niagara this year, I feel that most of those ran much like a well-oiled machine. Most, but not all.
One in particular was the Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bad Company show. The weather wasn't looking very promising and as we opened the box office, fans were already lined up to get in once the gates opened. Unfortunately for them it began to rain, and by rain I mean it came a torrential down pour! Many fans took shelter under the covering at the box office while others stood in line, getting completely beat up by the rain.
Unfortunately due the weather conditions, the gates were not opened at the scheduled time, leaving fans to stand in the rain until the storm subsided. At one point we had a lady approach the box office asking to get a refund for her tickets. Although we could understand her concern, no refunds were being given because no announcement had been made that the show was cancelled.
I wasn't sure at the time whether it was the best choice by the venue to keep the gates closed during the storm because it seemed very scary for many fans, as the weather was very severe at several points. In a situation such as this, I think that venues must have a plan in place to keep the safety of fans in mind. Although I do not feel that any harm was done, I think that it's always important to consider every option in unexpected situations such as a storm. Eventually the show went on without any other issues, although many fans enjoyed the show in soaking wet clothes.
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Does size matter?!
Now that my internship at First Niagara is over, I have been looking back at my experience and comparing it to other experiences I have had working in venues.
On Friday, October 25th I was asked to work a show at Mr. Smalls, Thriller: A Tribute Show, presented by Touchfaster and The Ruckus Bros. I was very excited to work the show, knowing that it would be a much different experience than working in the box office at First Niagara, and boy was I right!!
For the show I worked the Will Call/Box Office and right away noticed several differences with working in a much smaller venue. For this show we accepted cash only, seeing as we had no credit card machines or computers to work with. Most people already had purchased their tickets online but the remainder purchased tickets from me and my co-worker. Working in a venue much smaller, with a capacity of 650, we had much less people to wait on, which was a nice break from the 23,000 capacity at FNP.
We also had many people who had purchased VIP tickets, and along with those tickets they received show posters, food coupons, a DVD recording of the show and special VIP wristbands.
My responsibilities included taking or selling tickets, stamping hands to show that a ticket had been presented for the show, giving the VIP wristbands, show posters, and food coupons, as well as taking down email addresses for the show DVDs and entering people into the costume contest.
I learned from my experience how larger venues differ so much from smaller venues. Not considering the differences that capacity has on venue operations, so does many other aspects of the venue such as available technology and the needs of different types of shows.
So does size matter, in my experience, it really does.
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Strategic Planning can really ROCK!
As First Niagara is reaching its last show of the season, I have found myself looking back at different shows to see how each one was successful in its own way. A few weekends ago I worked the Kid Rock show, which is many ways was the same as any other show. There were however a few very interesting things that made that show in particular very interesting to me, as a music fan as well as an entertainment management student.
The first thing about the Kid Rock show that struck me was the ticket price. Every ticket, from the Pit to the back of the Lawn, was 20 bucks. Seriously though, who sells every ticket for 20 bucks a piece?! Well apparently Kid Rock does, which I have since decided was a very smart business decision. I sat down and talked about this with some of my co workers the day of the show because we were all somewhat baffled by this. The more we talked the more it made sense. As an artist it is extremely important to know your fan base, and not just know who they are but know where they are, how much disposable income they have and so on. Kid Rock, or his management team, obviously took time in finding out this information.
Consider these two scenarios:
Scenario 1- Let's say that tickets were priced like they normally would be, maybe even at bit less, ranging from $75.00 for Pit and Lower Pavilion seats, $40.00 for Upper Pavilion and $30.00 for Lawn seats. At those prices Kid Rock's tour would expect 10,000 people to attend. Imagine that those 10,000 attendees were broken down by price range into 2,000, 3,000, and 5,000 people respectfully. That would result in revenue of $420,000 in ticket sales.
Scenario 2- Now let's use the real example of Kid Rock's $20.00 flat tickets. With tickets at that price, approximately 21,000 people were in attendance of the show that night, resulting in $420,000 in revenue from ticket sales.
Now you may ask, what's the difference? Ticket sales revenue equalled the same. This is true but what is not being considered are the other sources of revenue. For instance, merchandise, food and beverage. Instead of getting revenue for these secondary sources from 10,000 people, they were able to do so from 21,000 people! That means that 11,000 more people were buying shirts, CDs, beer, soda, hot dogs, chicken wings, etc. And with that in mind, the tour also offered discounts on the merch, food and beverage that fans were buying to encourage them to buy more. Fans were able to buy merchandise for $20.00 and were also offered meal deals for $20.00, which included a couple hot dogs, a drink and other goodies. Even beer was reduced to $4.00 each, which enticed people to buy even more.
Either way I look at this, from a fan view point or a management student view point, it was an incredibly smart decision! Kid Rock was able to nearly sell out the 23,000 capacity pavilion, while giving fans an extremely affordable night out. I think that many artists could learn from this example by getting to know the fans and how much they are willing to spend to go see a live show. Many people fret over the cost of tickets, while not paying much mind to how much they spend on other things once at the show. This was surely the mindset that Kid Rock's tour had and in my opinion helped them to create an ingenious strategic business plan.
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Cooper with his All Access pass for the Rascal Flatts show!
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8 shows in 10 days?! Oh my word!
I just recently worked a very long stretch of shows from July 12th through July 21st. The list of shows we had during this time included the Mayhem Festival, Big Time Rush, America's Most Wanted Tour featuring Lil' Wayne, Vans Warped Tour, Jimmy Buffett, The XL Tour featuring Lynyrd Skynrd and Bad Company, Zac Brown Band, and Heart.
It was a long 10 days to say the least! Up until that point the longest I had worked was 3 shows back to back, which had done very little to prepare me. Although it was a fun filled week with a variety of different artists, the 6 back to back shows from July 16-21st was almost too much to handle.
With FNP being such a large venue, the clean-up required after each show is very extensive. A few shows in particular during that time required an incredible amount of work for the employees, such as the Vans Warped Tour and Jimmy Buffett. Historically Jimmy Buffett is one of the largest shows at FNP, bringing in an incredible amount of people to the venue.
It seems to me that, even though it was a successful week, it was also very long and stressful for everyone. Not only for the security team and the clean-up crew, but for all the employees. For me personally, it proved to be very tiring to work anywhere from 8am to 11pm for six straight days.
If there is one thing I learned from this experience it is how important it is for venues to take breaks in between shows as to give everyone a chance to rest and recuperate. I never had really thought about this only being a concert goer but after experiencing it first-hand I now know how important it is for venues to strategically plan its concert schedule to best benefit all parties involved.
With that being said, I know that many people enjoyed coming out to the shows during that time and that we in the Box Office worked very hard to make their experience as stress-free as possible.
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Ready to work the Vans Warped Tour!
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Headaches with electronic ticketing
Lately I've noticed a lot of issues with electronic tickets including regular electronic tickets as well as Groupons. Many times fans will come to shows with mobile tickets not knowing that we are unable to scan mobile tickets. This misunderstanding has caused fans to come to the Box Office to have their mobile tickets printed in order for them to enter the venue.
From a fan point of view I can completely understand the frustration with this. Fans are unhappy due to the fact that the convenience of mobile ticketing is no longer there when they are forced to have their tickets printed by the BO in order to get into the show. I can't say that I know the reasoning that the venue does not have the equipment necessary to scan these mobile tickets but I do know that is has been causing some headache with fans as well as workers.
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Daily Duties
On non-show days I have several things that I do in order to prepare for shows, much of which includes filling in-house ticket orders. Many times season ticket holders want to purchase extra tickets and so we fill those orders and send them out to the customer. These orders range from extra lawn tickets to orders which include VIP Club access, Premium parking and VIP Box seats. We also fill comp orders for radio stations and other media, which are given to fans through contests or other special offers. Most orders come in weeks ahead of time but are filled early so as to be available when the customer needs them.
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Tim McGraw vs. Styx
My first weekend working shows started with two completely opposite experiences.
Our first show was Tim McGraw, which drew in around 19,000 people. I know, right!? It was a mad house at FNP and the box office was slammed from the moment we opened to the moment we closed, hours after we had originally anticipated. At one point there was a line of people buying tickets that led from the box office, up the stairs, and onto the upper parking lot. Basically, we had a lot of people looking to buy tickets. Of course that does not include the crowd we had for Will Call.
On the second night we had Styx playing with REO Speedwagon and Ted Nugent. That night was quite different with around 8,000 people. The box office, after having a crazy night of running around, was able to relax a bit.
Luckily for the box office, both nights were a success with everything running pretty smoothly. For me, I worked the first night at Will Call seeing as I had only trained a few days for the supervisor position. I felt that it was best for me to get my feet wet with Will Call before I dove into the position of "problem-solver". The second night, being much slower than the first, gave me a chance to observe my trainer to understand more of what I would be doing on my own as supervisor. I would soon get the chance to prove myself.
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