How would you handle this situation?

[gafftaper]

Here's a little twist on the usual Question of the day...

We had a serious screw up tonight on the part of house management. It's a 200 seat black box theater. Our max occupancy is actually 400, but we only have 200 of the nice theater seats. Our computer system only allows 200 tickets to be printed. It's not possible to over sell. We had a dance studio using the theater today. Three shows in one day, all sold out. The two early shows however both had a few empty seats. The evening show, we had about 225 people with tickets. Apparently our ushers were not checking the time of performance printed on the tickets and we had a bunch of people with tickets from the morning shows get in to the evening show. All tickets look the same without careful inspection. So, 10 minutes prior to curtain we had every seat full and 25 people with paid tickets standing in the aisles waiting to sit.

No matter what you do someone is going to be angry. What would you do and why?

I'll tell you later what our house management decided to do.

 

[express]

I would go through, and make sure all of the people with the correct time had seats first. If there were more, you give those to the people with the wrong time. The other wrong timers would get tixs to another show, OR, if there wasn't one, they get refunded,or they're just S.O.L

 

[josh88]

its unfortunate, but the people who had tickets to the early show weren't at the right show. Assuming they were aware they were buying tickets for a certain time they missed their show. At the nicest I may refund their tickets to keep them from being angry but if you look at it as they are renting their seat for the length of the show, their lease had run out and they were now sitting in someone elses seat. That said we've had similar experiences where max capacity was higher than the actual number of seats and instead there was just a mad dash to find folding chairs and any other kind of seats to add to the space to accommodate the extra people.

 

[kiwitechgirl]

I agree with Express and Josh - those who had turned up at the correct show have the right to those seats. Those people who had misread their tickets and turned up for a later show can't blame the theatre or the box office for that - they needed to read more carefully; maybe refund their tickets as a gesture of goodwill (although I don't think there would be any requirement to do so) but if you've missed your show through no-one's fault but your own, too bad.

 

[cpf]

The folding chairs seem to be the way to go, coupled with an explanation of what went wrong to the people bumped from their assigned (or was it rush?) seats. We've had similar issues, but simply due to a mixup in the ticketing (rush seating), not the fault of the patron or door people, and to be honest I think the people who got moved to temporary seating were happier than the rest because they actually got legroom!

 

[SteveB]

We had a Haitain producer for a Carib concert decide to raffle off a new Mercedes. The ticket for the show was also the raffle ticket and you had to show up at the concert to win the raffle. 10,000 some odd raffle tickets sold. 2500 seat theater. Cluster F.....

 

[len]

I'd figure out a way to print tickets that are more obvious. Either that or get more diligent ushers.

 

[chausman]

I would find the people that don't know what time they were supposed to be there for the show, and make them sit in the "not As nice" theater seats. Or say "so sorry, you missed your show" and not let them be seated until everyone who paid for that show had been seated. And, I'm guessing that your ushers just had the "extra people" who got there after someone else was in there seat, sit on the floor in the aisles.

 

[MarshallPope]

My response would be to seat the people who had the correct ticket, and then offer anyone else a folding chair if available. It seems like that is more than they should get, so they should (in theory) be happy. Though, you never can please some audience members.

 

[cdcarter]

Add folding chairs for the 25 that didn't get seated, and offer them refunds if they desire. Don't unseat people that are already seated, and don't go running around trying to find people with the wrong time on their ticket. Resolve the situation as quickly and happily as possible, let the show start on time.

Then, train your ushers to do their job, and also put some house holds in your ticketing system. Not a full 25, but maybe 10 or so, for situations like this (and for when the chair of your board shows up at the theater and needs 5 seats to a sold out show).

 

[gafftaper]

So for those of you who want to kick out the people without a proper ticket. You already have 225 people inside a room with 200 seats. How do you go about finding and removing the people with the wrong ticket? You already have a PR nightmare on your hands thanks to those inattentive ushers. Will going through the house one by one and marching out everyone who doesn't have a ticket improve or hurt your overall PR situation? What do you do if someone absolutely refuses to leave?

 

[shiben]

So for those of you who want to kick out the people without a proper ticket. You already have 225 people inside a room with 200 seats. How do you go about finding and removing the people with the wrong ticket? You already have a PR nightmare on your hands thanks to those inattentive ushers. Will going through the house one by one and marching out everyone who doesn't have a ticket improve or hurt your overall PR situation? What do you do if someone absolutely refuses to leave?

Well the government provides men with guns to remove people who are really not wanting to leave if they should... They also have tasers, clubs, and pepper spray. Obviously, this is not what you want to have happen, its a PR nightmare. If you really have room for 200 more people in the area but are just out of seats, give the 25 more people seats, and politelly tell them what happened (that you accidently over sold the show, not what really happened), and offer them half price tix on another show.

 

[MrsFooter]

Also, what happens if you don't have anywhere to put 25 chairs? Our house holds 980, and when we say 980, we mean 980. There's nowhere to set up chairs that won't create a fire hazard. Plus, 25 chairs is a LOT; our handicap section is only 15 chairs, and that takes up a pretty big chunk of real estate.

Just something to think about to keep the conversation interesting!

(Also, as to what I would do in this situation? I would go tell the Front of House Manager. Blessedly, that's one problem that will never be mine!)

 

[DuckJordan]

This actually happens every year at the local high schools small pro space. They have roughly 60 seats and since the way the director orders tickets he doesn't just run out of tickets for the night. What generally happens is we seat people in the isles who are able to move their chair if it requires. He notoriously over sells by about 10-15 so its nothing new in our world. We just find them seats as best we can if we can't we refund their ticket and if its not final show offer them reserves for the next show. if its the final night we offer them comp tickets for the next show.

 

[cpf]

Also, what happens if you don't have anywhere to put 25 chairs? Our house holds 980, and when we say 980, we mean 980. There's nowhere to set up chairs that won't create a fire hazard. Plus, 25 chairs is a LOT; our handicap section is only 15 chairs, and that takes up a pretty big chunk of real estate.

Just something to think about to keep the conversation interesting!

(Also, as to what I would do in this situation? I would go tell the Front of House Manager. Blessedly, that's one problem that will never be mine!)

With temp chairs out of the picture, I think the best way would just be to turn away the extra people and give them free tickets/cash on the spot, since going over the PA and saying "OK guys, I want everyone to pull out their tickets and check the bottom right-hand corner..." is pretty much the same as announcing to the entire audience that your theatre/company is too amateur to handle simple arithmetic, let alone a complex performance.

The obvious solution is to have the date & time be the largest text on the ticket, or if you just found that hidden room in the building filled with gold bars, electronic admission and barcoded tickets.

 

[shiben]

This actually happens every year at the local high schools small pro space. They have roughly 60 seats and since the way the director orders tickets he doesn't just run out of tickets for the night. What generally happens is we seat people in the isles who are able to move their chair if it requires. He notoriously over sells by about 10-15 so its nothing new in our world. We just find them seats as best we can if we can't we refund their ticket and if its not final show offer them reserves for the next show. if its the final night we offer them comp tickets for the next show.

What Isles? Most Isles are not really a place for extra seating for a central United States performance.

With temp chairs out of the picture, I think the best way would just be to turn away the extra people and give them free tickets/cash on the spot, since going over the PA and saying "OK guys, I want everyone to pull out their tickets and check the bottom right-hand corner..." is pretty much the same as announcing to the entire audience that your theatre/company is too amateur to handle simple arithmetic, let alone a complex performance.

The obvious solution is to have the date & time be the largest text on the ticket, or if you just found that hidden room in the building filled with gold bars, electronic admission and barcoded tickets.

We got barcoded tickets. See if the people who run basketball games at your college can help you out. They tend to be able to afford such things.

 

[cdcarter]

Also, what happens if you don't have anywhere to put 25 chairs? Our house holds 980, and when we say 980, we mean 980. There's nowhere to set up chairs that won't create a fire hazard. Plus, 25 chairs is a LOT; our handicap section is only 15 chairs, and that takes up a pretty big chunk of real estate.

Well, per the way the original post read, adding seats shouldn't have been an issue. But, if it is, you just can't seat the last 25. Refund their tickets, and offer comps to the next performance (of that show, of the next thing that's interesting at the venue). Always get the problem out of the house as soon as possible. You want to get it away from other patrons, and also away from ushers and other members of the FOH staff who would love to help but won't make the right call or don't have the authority to.

 

[Chris15]

How might the fact that GT identified that the hirer was a dance studio affect this?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that to me reads kids dance school and that means the audience would have been almost entirely mums, dads, aunties, grandmas and others who are there to see their little darling perform...

 

[Tex]

-Comp the 25 extra people and apologize for over selling. Tell them they are welcome to see the show from standing room.
or...
-Find a place for 25 folders.
or...
-Announce to your audience that there was a mistake. Check all the tickets and ask the people who have tickets for a previous show to move to standing room, giving the 25 extras seats.

There's really no good solution. Trying to hide the fact that the box office made a mistake just makes it worse. Admit it, apologize and move on.

 

[museav]

I think it is important that it does not seem to be a matter of the event being oversold and that there was apparently other seating available.

How would the Ushers have responded to those with tickets for a different time if they had caught the discrepancy? It's not like they could have told them to come back at the right time since this was apparently the last performance, so it seems that the best they could have done was to identify that the patrons had come at the wrong time and offer them 'overflow' seating if they wanted it. With it affecting just 25 people it seems like it would be practical to seat the people who had tickets for that show in their rightful seats and offer those who made the mistake of coming to the wrong show the option of any open seating after everyone with a ticket for that show had been seated.

I'd be worried that offering refunds would not only be more difficult with it being a third party user but it could also set an undesired precedent that if you miss a show for which you have tickets you can simply show up later and either get a seat for that show or a refund.