Leadership / 03.13.24
The Luck of the Ticketing Professional
Teddy Durgin
There has always been a certain amount of luck when it comes to ticketing, especially from the consumer side. How many times have you thought a particular concert, show or game was sold out, but “As luck would have it…” Or have you ever been traveling for work or play, and you looked up what entertainment was nearby? And “as luck would have it,” one of your favorite singers, music groups or Broadway musicals was in town and tickets were still available.
Luck, of course, has also smiled on ticketing and live event professionals in their jobs. And with St. Patrick’s Day coming up on Sunday, March 17, we asked some INTIX members how the proverbial Luck o’ the Irish has factored into their career paths.
Deb Cummins, Ticket Operations Manager for the Buffalo Bills, was one of the first to answer: “If it weren’t for my mom working part time in the ticket office and asking me to help for a ‘few weeks’ in February 1987, I don’t think I would have this amazing career in tickets ops and all the great memories.” Indeed, she was hired full time in May 1987.
Amber Patton, Ticketing and Box Office Manager for the Pullo Center on the Penn State York campus in Pennsylvania, credits luck with “how I actually got into ticketing. Someone accidentally sent a list of assistantship/internship opportunities to my email address, getting me confused for another Amber on my campus. I saw one for Villanova's Ticket Office and applied, not thinking I would get it. But sure enough, I did! And now 18 years later, I am still working in ticketing. I guess luck or fate — whatever it was — was on my side.”
Kacy Woody, Box Office Manager at High Point Theatre in North Carolina, firmly believes she owes her whole career to luck. “I have been lucky to have jobs in the theatre ever since I got out of school,” she says. “Luck played a big role in my move into the box office. I was Tech Director at our venue at the time. Our Box Office Manager left to be Executive Director of the local opera company. I went to ask my then-boss a quick question. She looked at me and said, ‘Have you thought about being Box Office Manager?’ Two hours later, I got the transfer paperwork in my email. Two weeks later, I was sitting in the box office asking myself what I’d gotten myself into!”
Josh Ziegenbusch, Senior Director, Service and Retention, for the Oakland Athletics and INTIX Board Chair, insists that luck has played a part on numerous occasions for him. In terms of his ticketing luck, he pointed to how he got his start in the industry.
“I was on my way to Sacramento to meet with a former leader and mentor of mine to discuss my path to get into the industry,” he says. “I was about to graduate college and needed direction. On the way to Sacramento, we stopped in Oakland to watch an A’s game that just happened to be scheduled in the afternoon. Lucky! It just so happened that the club was hosting a career fair at that game and encouraging college graduates to apply for positions. I spoke with the HR staff and left them my resume, but I didn’t think much of it. About a week later, I got a phone call from the A’s and was offered a position based upon the career-fair conversation that only occurred because we stopped at the ballpark by chance on the way to our destination!”
Amy Matlins, Director of Ticketing for the New York Giants, says her career also started with a bit of luck. She had gotten a job right out of college traveling to university campuses. “We had a break, and I went back home to Kansas City to see if I couldn’t get a ‘real job,’” she says. “My brother was friends with the then-head of ticketing for the Kansas City Chiefs and put me in touch with him. He wasn’t hiring, but suggested I call the ‘new’ head of tickets for the Kansas City Royals.”
She landed her first full-time seasonal job in ticketing 30 years ago this month. “While the path has been winding, I have always credited Phil Youtsey and Mike Naughton with starting me on this crazy road of ticketing. I couldn’t be more grateful for being lucky enough to connect with them both.”
Ebony Hattix, Director of Guest Relations and Arena Operations for the Memphis Grizzlies & FedExForum, prefers the term “God’s blessings” to “luck.” She says, “Many people don't know that I didn't know anyone in the business before 2010 or so. I was working as an intake secretary when a team member asked if I would be interested in becoming a part-time ticketing person at the local arena. Little did I know, it would be the start of my career.”
Anne Vantine, Senior Treasurer at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., feels similarly blessed: “I was a graduate student at NYU needing to earn extra money. So, I signed up with a temp agency, and the very first job they sent me to was at Madison Square Garden. MSG eventually hired me full-time, and they sent me to my first INTIX (BOMI at that time). More than 30 years later, I am still in ticketing!”
Wendy Brown, Associate AD of Ticket Operations for Michigan State University Athletics, says she feels lucky with every single event she works. But one episode stands out to her from most others: “The luckiest I have ever felt was this past football season when we were doing a barcode sharing agreement with a visiting team based entirely on trust. They chose to sell the seats we had blocked off as their band seats resulting in about 40 rabid, visiting team fans suddenly at our guest services window. These folks were ‘passionately’ relaying the situation of band members being in their seats using every colorful word you can imagine, one person even spat on our window.”
She continues, “Luckily, I had held enough seats to relocate them and have even been able to retain the staff that had to deal with the less-than-understanding fans that day. Unluckily, for visiting teams, we will never be using that process again.”
INTIX President Maureen Andersen shared her lucky experience at a party. “I went to a goodbye party for a friend of mine in Denver who was moving to NYC,” she says. “At that party I met another guest who was working at the Denver Center and he told me and my other chum that they were hiring phone agents for the touring run of Evita. As luck would have it, I had just lost my job at a dinner theatre and my chum had lost his at a bakery. We both needed jobs. We applied and got hired. The rest is history. I was in the right place at the right time.”
For other INTIX pros interviewed for this article, luck wasn’t about getting the job or launching the career. It was about having lucky experiences that would become cocktail party stories for years. Take for example Harmony McGivney, Box Office Manager at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse in New York City. Years ago, she worked for the nonprofit Entertainment Community Fund, formerly The Actors Fund.
One day, she was serving as a production assistant for a benefit concert honoring the late Marin Mazzie. The benefit, dubbed "Nothing Like a Dame," was at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in New York City and consisted of an all-female production, talent and creative team.
“As I was setting out the pre-show catering, I got a panicked call from a member of the production staff,” she says. “‘Harmony, we have an emergency! The page turner for the accompanist identifies as male and, well, that doesn't follow the mission/theme of the benefit.’ As luck would have it, I can read music. I stepped in to assist, sitting on stage next to the accompanist turning pages and subsequently … making my Broadway debut! The highlight for me was getting a personal ‘Thank you’ from Broadway legend Bebe Neuwirth. I was in the right place at the right time.”
Lastly, someone had some luck recently at INTIX 2024. Unfortunately, it wasn’t … uh, good luck. That someone was Ben Bray, TicketPlan’s Relationship & Development Director. After the event was over, he and his wife stayed in Las Vegas a couple of extra days to explore the city. The highlight for them was a visit to the Punk Rock Museum, which has an in-house tattoo shop.
“So, we decided to get a shamrock tattoo each to celebrate our Irish heritage,” he says. “I put the Nirvana lyric ‘Just My Luck’ around my shamrock in a comedic nod to my typical bad luck. I then went and played the blackjack tables and incredibly found myself a couple of hundred dollars up! However, just as I started to think my new shamrock tattoo had brought a change in fortune, we were about to travel to the airport for our flight home. Our Uber driver inexplicably slammed the trunk of the car shut on my face as I was putting our bags in! Not the best preparation for a trans-Atlantic, red-eye flight. Yup, Just … My … Luck!”
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Tags: Leadership , Luck