Abox office orticket office is a place wheretickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at acountertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at awicket. By extension, the term is frequently used, especially in the context of thefilm industry, as ametonym for the amount of business a particular production, such as a film or theatre show, receives. The term is also used to refer to a ticket office at anarena or astadium.[1]
Ceramic money boxes were used at the sixteenth-centuryGlobe Theatre andRose Theatre in London, where many examples have been found during archaeological investigations. They were possibly used by the "gatherer" at the entrance to the theatres, who collected the admission money. There is disagreement, however, around whether the term originates from this time, as the objects could have been carried by the many snack-sellers attending the audiences; they too needed a convenient and secure way to collect their customers' cash.[a][3]
There is no record of the term "box office" being used until the eighteenth century: it was being used from at least 1741, deriving from the office from which tickets fortheatre boxes were sold. This is the derivation favoured by theOxford English Dictionary.[4]
Total ticket sales were being termedbox office from at least 1904.[4][5]
Media related toBox offices at Wikimedia Commons