How to flyer at the Half-Price Ticket Booth in Union Square

The Un-Scripted Theater Company has been promoting at the Half-Price Ticket Booth for years and years and years, and many of us have even had jobs working inside the booth selling the tickets as well. Here are some tips from us to you on how to best work outside the booth handing out flyers for your show...

Whether you're a seasoned street promotion expert or have never handed a flyer to anyone before in your entire life, flyering at the Tix Booth in San Francisco's Union Square is going to be a completely new experience for you. Fortunately for you, however, new in a good way.

Probably the biggest change from flyering on the street is, unless Tix Bay Area is selling tickets for you, you aren't allowed anywhere near the ticket booth to hawk your wares. This gives you a nice safe zone away from homeless people and timeshare shucksters that, if they break, you can have them hauled away by security. This also means that you need to stay within your bubble of safety as well. No going out to the sidewalk and handing flyers to everyone who walks by. No going out to the people looking at the paintings in the middle of the square and stealing business from the artists. You stay by the ticket booth, and everyone else stays in their space. Fortunately, by the ticket booth is the best place to sell tickets for you anyway.

Second, you have to play nice. You can't be too aggressive and you can't interrupt customers from doing the business that they're already doing. This rule applies to everyone who promotes there. If someone is promoting like a loud, rude, obnoxious, jerk, please go tell the people in the booth and they will come out and help them play nice. If they don't play nice, their show will be pulled from the window and security will remove them. It never happens, but it's nice to know that it can if things get out of control. Just welcome people in and help them out. People shopping at the Tix Booth want to know about your show. That's why they're there. Talk about an easy job!

I think the best way to promote at the ticket booth is to think of yourself less as a salesman on a deadline, and more as a concierge without a desk. You're there to help people. The first thing I always do is I go up and see who else is handing out flyers, introduce my self, and find out what show they're promoting (while at the same time teaching them about my show). Then I go to the window and introduce myself and find out how many tickets they've sold for my show. And finally I go to the list and look over and see what other shows are playing. Then when people come up looking for shows, I can help them navigate a system that is different than what they're probably not used to and I can work WITH the other people promoting shows rather than against them. Working together is definitely the key! And the more everyone promoting at the booth knows about the booth the more help you can be and the better you'll be at getting the word out about your show.

Here are some facts that most visitors to the Tix Booth for the first time, usually don't know about the San Francisco ticket booth:

It's not just Day-Of, it's Week-Of. That means that you can buy tickets for any show going on up to a week in advance, starting Tuesday and ending on Sunday.

It's cash or credit, not just cash only.

The price you see in the window is the half-price price. This price has already has been marked down by half and includes the service charge that goes to Tix Bay Area (a non-profit organisation that promotes and supports the theater community in the San Francisco Bay Area).

All the shows hi-lighted in pink are theaters within walking distance from the Tix Booth.

Most of the shows on the list are smaller theaters between 50 to 150 seats. People may or may not know about the shows on the list, which is why there are little descriptions explaining a little about each show.

If both windows are open, there is only one line that feeds to whoever is the next available teller. The window closet to Powell Street has a Ticketmaster computer and the other one does not, so if they're wanting to buy a Ticketmaster show, they have to keep waiting for that window and the people behind them can move forward to the other window if they want a half-priced ticket or MUNI pass or something.

Most shows are available online as well as at the booth. They're the exact same price, so if they have access to the internet, tixbayarea.org could be helpful if getting down to the booth is hard for them.

Oh, and one last thing! You don't want EVERYONE to come see your show, you want people who would love your show to come see your show. If you're doing a comedy, you DON'T want people who would rather see a drama to come, and visa versa. You're there to help people find the shows they want to see. There are lots of people out there in the world. There are lots of them who want to see your show. Feel people out and help them find the show that's right for them. Happy audiences means more theater goers, and more theater goers means more business for you and your theater company!

Improv Game - So Fu*k You All:

So Fu*k You All:
This is a great game, but you don’t need to call it "So fu*k you all". That’s just what The Fibbs used to call it. It’s basically just a circle character monologue game. Your group stands in a circle. One person starts a monologue as a character. Then the person to their right continues the same monologue as the same character. It goes all around the circle till it gets back to the person who starts it and then they finish it. As The Fibbs we would also try and end every monologue with the line "so fu*k you all", and that continued over when we brought the game to the Un-Scripted Theater Company. You don’t have to end with a particular line, or you can pick a more PG line to end with. It doesn’t matter. Really the point is to expand your repertoire of characters you can play, and to learn how to continue the work/story of your fellow actors. It's a great game and you can play at every workout as a warm-up and really get stuff out of it over time.

Improv Game - I Am A Tree:

I Am A Tree:
One actor goes out on stage and says "I am a tree" taking a position as a tree, a second actor goes out and adds to the picture they are painting, and a third person goes out and finishes it. Then the person who was first picks one of the two and leaves the stage, leaving the leftover actor on stage as the start of a new picture.

Example:
Actor 1: I am a tree
Actor 2: I am a leaf on the tree
Actor 3: I am the grass under the tree
Actor 1: I’ll take the grass
1 and 3 leave
Actor 2: I am a leaf
Actor 4: I am a panda bear
Actor 5: I am a zookeeper
Etc…

However, as you play this game, it can become an amazing training tool at getting the cast to learn the kinds of stories each other like to tell. If instead of just painting a picture on stage, the objects you go in as can raise the stakes for the story and connect together with themes. As a result, "I am a tree" can become a great training tool for ensemble and comedy.

Example:
Actor 1: I am a tree
Actor 2: I am a spotted owl
Actor 3: and I am the impending doom from the "clean air act"
Actor 1: I’ll take the spotted owl
1 and 2 leave
Actor 3: I am the "clean air act"
Actor 4: I am a brighter better tomorrow
Actor 5: and I am the fog of un-reality
Etc…

That was a bit of a political example, but maybe that’s what one group loves doing stories about. My group usually ends up making fun of my love life, but I think that’s a good sign. Good-natured ribbing is usually a sign that people like playing together.

Improv Game - The Dolphin Training Game:

The Dolphin Training Game:
It’s just like the hot/cold game you used to play as a little kid, but without the cold and with the sound "ding" instead of hot. It’s the same concept as the one you use to train dolphins to jump through hoops and stuff. You send a person out of the room and decide on a single simple task for them to do: Sit on the chair; put their hand on their head; hug Whitton; lift the chair off the ground; etc. Try and keep the tasks to single activities when you start out. Putting on a jacket is a couple of activities, not just one.

When they get closer to doing the activity everyone in the audience says "ding". When they get it you go "ding ding ding ding ding" and someone else gets to try. People tend to think in categories, so if you try to think outside of the same category for the next person, everyone will get more out of the game. So if the first person had to sit on the chair, the next person will be thinking about moving around the room. If you have the second person put their hand on their head, you’re giving them a chance to discover something they weren’t thinking about.

This is a great game for learning that it’s ok to be wrong about stuff, not to get stuck on your ideas, and how to learn from mistakes. As the person going, the more you cycle through incorrect activities and have it be ok that you tried something that didn’t work, the closer you can get to discovering what the right activity is. Humble, bold improvisors tend to be really fast at this game, two great qualities in an actor.

This game can be really satisfying to finally succeed after struggling on stage for 20 minutes, but you also want to keep the game fun. Try to balance getting struggling improvisor all the way through it with keeping your cast happy. If people aren’t happy make it ok to give up and try again. If the game isn’t fun, no one will want to learn from it.