Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Introduction

Rocket Venues is a non-profit theatre venue of the arts located in Scotland within the United Kingdom, where I interned for 5 weeks. For the month of August every year, they are open for business as part of the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, the largest festival of the arts in the world. Here I was Box Office Manager for the venue, where I managed three other individuals. My goal was to run the Box Office more efficiently than in previous years. My objectives in obtaining this goal were to devise a better ticket system and organizing the box office so tasks were finished in a more timely manner. I also hoped to learn to live and work in a foreign country, while using the management skills I learned in the United States. I was given many duties and responsibilities, where I encountered challenges, yet devised solutions to these challenges. Throughout my internship with Rocket Venues, I gained valuable business management skills.

The opportunity I had at Rocket Venues is one I will never forget. I met many new people through my various relationships with my supervisors and co-workers, who I plan to keep in touch with in the future. I found while on the job there were theories, concepts, and principles I found useful throughout my internship that I had learned from my previous classes at California State University San Bernardino. I learned lessons from this practical experience that would have been difficult to learn merely from a classroom. At Rocket Venues, I had the opportunity to network with management and learn about how a theatre venue is run. I had positive and negative experiences during my internship, however, it was an overall positive experience that I will look back on fondly in the future.

About Rocket Venues

Rocket Venues is a non-profit organization in the Scotland, which could also be considered a club in the United Kingdom. Rocket Venues has been around for 12 years. It started as a university club which brought performers from St. Andrew's University and other universities in and near Edinburgh, providing performance space to those that wished to perform at the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe, the largest festival of the arts in the world.

Over the course of the next six years, Rocket Venues strives to introduce students from around the world to the Edinburgh Festival, bringing a diversity of knowledge, experience, and expertise from around the world, combining one creative enterprise that provides a forum for students to discuss their philosophies on the arts, arts management, and world politics. In the sixth year, Xela Batchelder, Executive Director, began to collaborate with Professor Rick Demarco, C.B.E. (Commander of the British Empire) and this is when things really began to take off for Rocket Venues.

As mentioned previously, Rocket Venues is just one of many venues at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Fringe began in 1947, when the Edinburgh International Festival was launched. It was seen as a post-war program to re-unite Europe through culture. It was so successful that it encouraged more performers than there was even enough room for. Aware that it would draw a crowd, six Scottish companies and two English companies came up with the idea to allow the uninvited to turn up and fend for themselves.

2007 is the 61st year of the Fringe and it is changing every year to accommodate anyone who might want to attend. Over the years, as the Fringe Organization got bigger, so did the list of performances. Companies began multiplying as soon as the Fringe got its own phone, and when computers were installed thirty years later, hundreds were attending.

Fringe 2007 features 31,000 performances of 2,050 shows in 250 venues throughout Edinburgh. Theatre makes up 31% of the Fringe program, followed by Comedy, which makes up 30.5%. The other types of shows featured at the Fringe are 17% Music, 5.5% Children's Shows, 5% Musicals and Opera, 4.5% Dance and Physical Theatre, 3.5% Exhibitions, and 3% Events. At the Fringe 2006, 1.5 Million tickets were sold, demolishing all arts festival records, and the grand total for the Fringe 2007 is expected to be even greater. Every year the Fringe generates about Ј75 million for the Edinburgh and Scottish economy (Edinburgh).

My Job as Box Office Manager

I was assigned to the Box Office, as Box Office Manager (see Appendix A). It was here where I dealt with anything ticket and sales related to any of the shows in our venue. We had over 40 shows a day, every day, in our four theatres (see Appendix D).

Calum Thornicroft, Timothy MacDonald, and Phillip Sidney were Box Office Sales Associates that I managed. All of the Box Office Sales Associates were from different parts of the United Kingdom, while I was born and raised in California. We all worked

very long hours and put all of our energy into running the Box Office efficiently. Without their hard work and dedication, my job would have been much more difficult.

Before I began my internship, I knew that my goal as Box Office Manager was to run the Box Office more efficiently than previously. Upon arrival, I realized that there were some things that could be run more effectively. For example, I noticed the filing system for reservation was not as organized as it could be. I created a new system in which the reservations could be found more quickly, thus increasing efficiency. I also set up the box office program, called WinTix This program was a necessity, as when the shows began, everything needed to be up and running correctly and all the pre-sale tickets needed to be entered into the system in order for our sales numbers to be accurate.

The objectives to meeting my goal of running the box office more efficiently were as follows:

1.) Figuring out a better ticket system so there is less confusion

2.) Organizing the box office so that tasks get finished in a timely manner

3.) Learning to live and work in a country that is foreign, while using the management skills I have learned previously from work and school

As Box Office Manager I was in charge of anything and everything box office or sales related. Upon arrival, before the box office was even open for business, I set up the ticketing system used in the box office to keep track of sales. I also spoke with theatre companies who had concerns about their particular ticketing system. Many theatre companies wanted to set up special deals for certain dates, such as 2 for 1 tickets,