Miki McKay proudly declares that her entire ticketing career has been with the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts (referred to as “the PAC” by locals). She started at the downtown Anchorage venue as a part-time ticket seller in 2015, then was promoted to part-time Assistant Box Office Manager two years later. Another promotion — to full-time Assistant Box Office Manager — occurred in 2018. Finally, in 2019, she was elevated to Box Office Manager, a role she has held ever since.
Miki McKay
In that position, she is responsible for making sure both the PAC’s call center and box office run smoothly as far as day-to-day operations and events are concerned. Over the years, one personal attribute has emerged that has become McKay’s biggest strength: “Problem solving! In ticketing, there are a million different things happening and being able to work with all the variables to make a show run smoothly from the ticketing side of things has been exciting and challenging for me.”
Geography: The Biggest Challenge of All?
Of course, one cannot interview Miki McKay and not talk about her place in the world . . . her literal place in this world. Alaska! Working in such a remote location has certainly made it tricky at times staying connected to the larger ticketing community. How does she cope?
She replies, “Living in Anchorage, Alaska, there are very few ticketing professionals, and I work with all of them. Alaska Standard Time is also four hours behind Eastern Standard Time (EST) which makes meetings on EST very early. As I’ve only worked for the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, it is hard to identify when a practice or policy is outdated because I have no comparison to industry standards/best practices — just ‘we’ve always done it this way.’”
She credits the International Ticketing Association (INTIX) with helping her stay connected to the larger ticketing community. Due to the expense, she has only made it to a handful of INTIX’s annual conferences every few years. “But every time I have attended,” she says, “I’ve gained new insight into the ticketing world at large and have been able to bring that knowledge back to my work at home.”
Good Counsel From Up North
Early on her career, a mentor once told her, “Nobody outside of ticketing understands ticketing.” Those words have practically been prophecy for McKay. She remarks, “This piece of advice has been helpful any time someone asks for the absurd or impossible. They just don’t understand how ticketing works and everything that goes into it. They honestly believe you can do anything, which I think is a credit to every ticketing professional who makes this crazy job look easy!”
With this being our Women in Ticketing series, what advice would McKay give to any young woman reading this just starting out in the ticketing/live event business as she did just over a decade ago? McKay was quick to answer: “Any mistake you make has been made by someone before. Mistakes are not the end of the world, and I have yet to come across a mistake that can’t be fixed. Or, as I jokingly tell my staff, there’s no mistake you make that I can’t make worse and then fix!”
And it always helps to have a funny or interesting anecdote to illustrate one’s point. Several years ago, when she was still a ticket seller, the PAC’s box office decided the staff needed to “map the locations of our different sized seats within our theatres. When this project was assigned to me, we didn’t have any sort of tape measure we could use in the box office. To improvise, my manager cut a string of sequins to try small, medium, large seats in different sections.”
Fortunately, the venue’s maintenance took notice of what she and her colleagues were trying to do and informed them that every seat had an A, B, or C marking on the bottom of the seat to indicate size. “Although I didn’t end up using the sequins that day,” McKay recalls, “my manager did gift me a strand of sequins that I keep at my desk . . . because in the theatre we measure seats with sequins!”
The Future
The PAC has been a downtown Anchorage landmark for more than 35 years. During that time span, it has become the premier arts and entertainment hub for the city, with a diverse season delivered by eight resident companies and other presenters. These eight range from the Anchorage Opera and the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra to Alaska Youth Orchestras and the Alaska Dance Theatre and more.
Looking ahead, McKay says she is “cautiously optimistic” about where live events are headed in Alaska specifically and the world, in general. She concludes, “I tend to live by the old adage ‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst.’ I think that no matter what else is happening, live events are part of the glue that holds communities together, and there really is something for everyone.”
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