Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-07-17
NOW MY IDEA is THIS!
Daily Talks With Thinking Philndelphans Subjects They
Knov Best
Know Best

These are the things which the 'no.tele.
phone. order rule was designed to correct
and which II has corrected But some peo.
sons for quite long time thought that 1t
was reflection upon their honesty or In
tegrity.
The Impossible Request
''The request which It Is impossible to
grant is the bane Of the box office man.
Our whole desire is to please the public.
because 1t Is upon that public that the vari-
GUS attractions depend for their existence,
and. therefore. every possible request Is
granted. But. nevertheless. impossible
things are asked. especially in the case Of
attractions for which we are certain to sell
out the house.
Most of these come from persons who
have left the procuring Of their tickets until
the last minute. Then they have in mind
exactly what they want, and it Is sometimes
difficult to convince them that 1t cannot be
had for them. We make it n rule to take
every case individually and to explain at
length to the applicant, 80 that he will leave
feeling that he has secured the best pos
sible seats.
"a box Office. to be successful, mdst be
run in absolutely good faith with the pub
lic The rule of first come. first served Is,
! believe, the greatest element In a success
full policy. and. If previous purchaser has
secured the special seats desired, to give the
later conner as near to what he wishes as the
situation will allow.
The Scalpcrs
THE scalper nuisance has been practi.
cally eliminated from the Academy 1t is
Der Of tickets from getting into the hands
Of alpers. The scalper like Sir Joseph
Porter in 'Pinafore,' has his sisters and
his cousins and his aunts and his cousins,
whom he reckons by the DOZENS and If each
of them buys two or three tickets the
obtain n giy oi
all we can do, for we cannot know every
person who comes to the office.
'But we have made 1t improbable for
the scalper to deal with us. In order TO
make profit the scalper must sell his
tickets at the last minute, when the de-
mand is such as to warrant the payment Of
more than the regular price. Now some
times there Will come up big storm, in
which case the persons who have not their
tickets will not come out on the chance of
getting one. Then the scalpcr loses badly,
for very often he is unable to sell what he
has at even lower than the box office price
and so loses the full price of each unsold
ticket
I'm this case the usual procedure is for
the scalprr to come to the box Office and
try to get partial refund. We simply re-
fuse to do anything. A few lessons ~ this
sort have made the scalpcr shy of the Acnd.
envy, and we do not have any trouble from
this source. They know that when they mo-.
cumulate bunch of tickets they will not
get anything back if something goes wrom,
with their plans, and the risk is too great
Philadelphia Public Reasonable
II have been in the Academy hoy oGic.
for good many years and l. like the other
box office men of Philadelphia, have found
the people OF IN" city very reNSonablo and
fair, and by what have been told, hv for n ,m,
most so in the country. The office was eu
Iab!iShed by Mr.. Pugh more than fifty y.ors
ago, Miss Harris succeeded Mr.. Purh md
upon the retirement of Miss Harris wns
placed in 'rlarge, although ! was nssociot"I
with the office for a long time before iii,
happened. ] personally sold the tirst ,irha,
for the Philadelphia Orchestra. littlc imnn
ining at that time what it was to grow in,o
or how intimately ] was to become nsunnt
ated with its ticket sales
Box office work requires tact and solo,-
mhnShp, III" person who cannot mnkn m
his mind AS to just what he wants il thn
great time kilcr for the box office man in
say nothing OF the persons who uro wnjtinn
behind him in the line II they woulL n,'is5
take our word for II, much of this LOST ti,,.
would be saved, but there Hrr Inuny VIA
want t" talk II over, although in tho ,mI
they nr" obliged TO take what we saw, us II
is til" truth. The ability To- size mn n nan.
son Is nhot hcr asset of great value and nftn,
saves much time and trouble, although ~
l Sald W" do not have much of the Inter in
our offices, either the one at the Academy
or In mine IT'S a