The joy of box office
Two years ago I wrote about the, shall we say, slightly eccentric customers I dealt with in my retail days. Now, one year into box office work, I'm building up a nice repertoire of similar anecdotes regarding a slightly different bunch of people ...
Before considering paying customers, however, there's a degree of repetition in queries from people who've come to the wrong place - above all, during the summer, those seeking tickets for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, whose offices are elsewhere. After informing them where they should try, we will let the nicer tourists know that tickets went on sale the previous November, so they probably shouldn't raise their hopes too much.
The puzzled question "is this the cathedral?", another repeat offender, at least has the benefit of being an understandable mistake. We, like the Festival admin staff, work in the Hub, a former assembly hall for the Church of Scotland which, despite all appearances to the contrary, was never actually used as a church. People tend to realise they've come to the wrong place the moment they step through the door (at the east end, incidentally, but if I've only just realised it as I'm typing this post that's the high altar would be, I can't expect a tourist to), but it's only reasonable they should come further to ask where St Giles is, if not here. (Answer: further down the road on the right, you can't miss it.)
"Is this the castle?" Er, no. I could go on, but my friend Peter's fantasy about adorning the outside walls of said castle with the spray-painted legend "it's over here, you American p****s" says it all.
(shudder)
On to customers who know what they're doing here. The request for leg-room in any of the venues used for the Festival is probably the most frequently heard, and certainly one we try to accommodate. It's the reasons they give us which are priceless, not to mention how they describe it: a gammy leg, "left leg out" (and your right leg in?) or, a couple of days ago, the sublime "I have terrible knees". We shouldn't laugh, but it brightens up our day no end.
Last year, tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic under Rattle were few and far between, even during the priority booking period. One man refused to believe the ticket we'd sent him was the best available at that stage and did not hesitate to tell us so, very aggressively. How he could think that treating box office staff with such disrespect would work to his advantage, I cannot imagine, but his customer record promptly gained the warning "VERY rude man".
Compare him to the lovely old dear who rang us constantly to ask if there'd been any returns for Abbado conducting The magic flute. We got to recognise her voice immediately and were invariably sorry not to be able to help, as she was invariably so optimistic. Imagine how delighted we were when, on the morning of the final performance, she finally got her ticket - worth £42, which (she said) was the number of times she had called. I only wish I could remember her name ...
Of course not everyone is so lucky. Even when a performance is sold out, people after a single ticket find it difficult to accept that no, we really can't fit them in anywhere, and woe betide you if you have a pantomime booker who simply refuses to go in January when all the performances in December of nigh on full, even when you point out it'd give the children something to look forward to in the New Year. As for not having a performance on Christmas Eve this year - it falls on a Monday, which is invariably their day off - let's not go there.
Given the international flavour of the Festival, there's the usual inevitable round of mispronounciations. Don Quixote was spoonerised into Donkey Toxey, while there was an incredible number of people going on about die Zorba float last year. This time round I predict references to the Emperor Nero's lover Poppy-a, umpteen manglings of Euripides (Yuri Pieds?) and the funky Rameau ballet On danse being pronounced with a lisp owing to the forte-style F used instead of an S.
I'll keep you posted ...
Before considering paying customers, however, there's a degree of repetition in queries from people who've come to the wrong place - above all, during the summer, those seeking tickets for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, whose offices are elsewhere. After informing them where they should try, we will let the nicer tourists know that tickets went on sale the previous November, so they probably shouldn't raise their hopes too much.
The puzzled question "is this the cathedral?", another repeat offender, at least has the benefit of being an understandable mistake. We, like the Festival admin staff, work in the Hub, a former assembly hall for the Church of Scotland which, despite all appearances to the contrary, was never actually used as a church. People tend to realise they've come to the wrong place the moment they step through the door (at the east end, incidentally, but if I've only just realised it as I'm typing this post that's the high altar would be, I can't expect a tourist to), but it's only reasonable they should come further to ask where St Giles is, if not here. (Answer: further down the road on the right, you can't miss it.)
"Is this the castle?" Er, no. I could go on, but my friend Peter's fantasy about adorning the outside walls of said castle with the spray-painted legend "it's over here, you American p****s" says it all.
(shudder)
On to customers who know what they're doing here. The request for leg-room in any of the venues used for the Festival is probably the most frequently heard, and certainly one we try to accommodate. It's the reasons they give us which are priceless, not to mention how they describe it: a gammy leg, "left leg out" (and your right leg in?) or, a couple of days ago, the sublime "I have terrible knees". We shouldn't laugh, but it brightens up our day no end.
Last year, tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic under Rattle were few and far between, even during the priority booking period. One man refused to believe the ticket we'd sent him was the best available at that stage and did not hesitate to tell us so, very aggressively. How he could think that treating box office staff with such disrespect would work to his advantage, I cannot imagine, but his customer record promptly gained the warning "VERY rude man".
Compare him to the lovely old dear who rang us constantly to ask if there'd been any returns for Abbado conducting The magic flute. We got to recognise her voice immediately and were invariably sorry not to be able to help, as she was invariably so optimistic. Imagine how delighted we were when, on the morning of the final performance, she finally got her ticket - worth £42, which (she said) was the number of times she had called. I only wish I could remember her name ...
Of course not everyone is so lucky. Even when a performance is sold out, people after a single ticket find it difficult to accept that no, we really can't fit them in anywhere, and woe betide you if you have a pantomime booker who simply refuses to go in January when all the performances in December of nigh on full, even when you point out it'd give the children something to look forward to in the New Year. As for not having a performance on Christmas Eve this year - it falls on a Monday, which is invariably their day off - let's not go there.
Given the international flavour of the Festival, there's the usual inevitable round of mispronounciations. Don Quixote was spoonerised into Donkey Toxey, while there was an incredible number of people going on about die Zorba float last year. This time round I predict references to the Emperor Nero's lover Poppy-a, umpteen manglings of Euripides (Yuri Pieds?) and the funky Rameau ballet On danse being pronounced with a lisp owing to the forte-style F used instead of an S.
I'll keep you posted ...
posted by Anthony at
14:00
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