Audience Services Manager

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

For 30 years, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas ("Arts & Ideas") has inspired and delighted audiences with an annual program of over 200 performing arts and humanities events year-round, at least 80% of which are free.

Focused events in June range from world and nationally-renowned speakers sharing the stage with critical local voices for discussions on democracy, to jazz concerts, theatrical performances, dance, takeout mixology classes, bike and walking tours, and live, individual performances by local on-call artists on front lawns and sidewalks throughout the area.

Year-round programs include special town-hall events, a fellowship program for youth, planning and implementing mini-festivals in New Haven's culturally-rich neighborhoods, participation in the NEA Big Read, and our annual Visionary Leadership Award program.

PRIMARY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

The Audience Services Manager (ASM) will ensure a positive and dynamic customer service experience for guests of Arts & Ideas events. They will attend to customer access and accommodations, ease of engagement and reservation process, and safety and security of customer information.

The ASM will hire, supervise, and train the Box Offices and House Management staff (5-10 employees) and manage volunteers when assigned to venues. They will perform a variety of tasks to ensure the smooth, safe and efficient operation of Arts & Ideas performance venues by overseeing the flow of patrons from arrival, ticket checking, concession, seating, circulation at intermissions, and departure, as well as emergency management during events.

Additional duties include cultivated high-quality customer service to effectively serve Arts & Ideas diverse constituencies; provide problem-solving support and guidance to staff and volunteers as related to attendee safety, ticketing questions, and late seating; and oversee responses to audience and patron inquiries. 

1. Department Wide

• Manage the budget and staff scheduling of Box Office and House Management teams. 


• Implement Customer Service trainings for Box Office and House Management staff 


• Ensure collaboration between both teams and their communication to other departments in the organization. 


• Collect feedback from audience members through surveys and audience interactions; assist with creating audience statistics reports to help inform marketing strategies and decisions. 

2. Box Office

• Manage the timeline for building, completing, and testing the ticketing and reservation platforms in advance of on-sale dates. 

• Create pre-show and post-show emails to audience members with helpful event  information (venue, parking, seating, etc.) 

• Collaborate with the Box Office Lead on the programming of the Box Office System. 

• Manage & maintain events, venues, discounts, and other box office functionality. 

• Collaborate with the Artist Services and Development Departments to set parameters for held inventory, process orders of held inventory and proactively manage the timely release of unsold inventory for general sale. 

• Establish and implement a plan for coordinating between advance and on-site sales. 

• Compile and distribute a Daily Sales Reports to Arts & Ideas staff 

• Create and distribute a Final Sales Report at the conclusion of the season 

• Reconcile daily sales reports from our 3rd party partners to include in our sales reports. 

• Implement ticketing services to serve various methods of purchasing (over-the-phone, in-person, online purchase support, etc.) 


• Serve as a point of support for customer service inquiries. 

3. Front of House

• Hire and orient a House Management Coordinator (HMC) and temporary front of house staff. 

• Oversee HMC procedure development & implementation 

• Coordinate staffing with the HMC to maximize efficiency and minimize number of individuals required to fulfill both box office and front-of-house needs while managing personnel budget. 

• Coordinate equipment & signage needs & schedules with the Operations Department. 

• Collaborate with the Programming Department and the Production Department to provide accessibility options to Arts & Ideas donors and customers. 
  

REQUIREMENTS  

• Must have 2-3 years of customer service experience, experience in supervision of staff a plus 

• Must be highly organized and detail-oriented 

• Familiarity with box office software is ; knowledge of Eventbrite is a plus 

• Ability to handle multiple tasks and priorities with efficiency and poise  
  
  

ORGANIZATIONAL DESIRES 

• Interest in the arts & performing arts 

• Conversational Spanish 

• Familiarity with the neighborhoods and communities in and around New Haven 
  
  

CLASSIFICATION 

• Job Type: Part-Time (Seasonal) 

• Pay: $25.00 per hour 

• Schedule: March through mid-July [With weekend and late-night hours during the summer (April-June)]

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  • March–April (8-24hr per week) 
  
  
  
  

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  • May through June (32-40hr per week) 
  
  
  
  

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  • July (TBC) 
  
  
  
  

• Location: 195 Church Street 12FL New Haven, CT 06510