Name: Connie Acevedo
Position: Assistant to the box office treasurer, Auditorium Theatre
Years: One
Q. How’d you get started in this job?
A. I was here a long time ago, not in the ticket booth, but I was doing group sales a long time ago. Then I was working with the United Center, doing the same sort of things, doing the suites, and a spot was open for an assistant, and here I am. I’ve been in the business six or seven years.
Q. Right now, you’re selling tickets for the touring production of “Les Miserables,” and seats are going fast. What are some of the things you’re dealing with?
A. A lot of people come up and they expect certain seats, and they’re not there, and they only have a few days in town. They all know what they want and they want center seats. At the United Center, they just want to get in. One woman was practically crying at my window. She wanted the cheapest seat. Somebody had told her the price was $17 for the Saturday matinee, and it was $27, so she wound up walking away with her daughter.
Q. Do you care when you don’t have the tickets someone wants?
A. I feel bad. You try to find the closest possible seats, you try to help them out. You don’t want to send anybody away.
Q. What are some of the other situations you encounter?
A. I had people at the wrong theater, they were supposed to be at Orchestra Hall, complaining. That happened twice here in the past month. The other day I had someone come up and ask me what time the movie was playing.
Q. When it gets close to show time, the lobby fills up with people while customers are lining up outside your window trying to buy tickets for that day’s show, and in the middle of it someone is trying to buy tickets for a performance that’s days or weeks away. How do you deal with it all?
A. Just take your time and work on the customer, try to help them out. We’re used to it, I guess.
Q. Are some times busier for you than others?
A. Usually, we’ll have a rush for lunch hour, I’d say [2-4:30 p.m.] is kind of dead, and starting at [5 p.m.] is when we start to get busy.
Q. What do you do during the down time?
A. There’s always a lot of stuff for us to do. You do a lot of reports for the day for the different shows, faxing over all the numbers, dealing with the income, group sales, processing all group orders that come in from group sales. I’d say two to three hours doing all the reports, and then it gets busy. You work at the window for a while, give the people give people a break, then you go back. At the end of the performance, you have to close out the show, do the settlement at the end of every night. In the morning of every day you balance out all the sales for all the shows that were done the day before.
Q. That could add up to a lot of work. How much time do you spend here?
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A. I’m here usually five to six days a week, usually from 9:30 [a.m.] to 8 or 8 [p.m.]. On Saturday, we’re here until 9 [p.m.], because we have a show at 8.
Q. Do you mind working so much?
A. I’m used to working late hours.
Q. You’re in control of one of the hottest tickets in town right now. Have you gotten to see the show yourself?
A. I haven’t seen it yet, but I will.
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“Les Miserables” runs through Saturday at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy. The box office is open from 10 a.m. to curtain time Friday and Saturday. 312-902-1500 or 312-922-2110.