A box office or ticket office is a place where tickets are sold to the
public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction
at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket.
By extension, the term is frequently used, especially in the context
of the film industry, as a synonym for the amount of business a
particular production, such as a film or theatre show, receives.Box
office business can be measured in the terms of the number of tickets
sold or the amount of money raised by ticket sales (revenue). The
projection and analysis of these earnings is very important for the
creative industries and often a source of interest for fans. This is
predominant in the Hollywood movie industry.The term is attested since
1786, presumably from sales of boxes (private seating areas in a
theater). The sense of "total sales" is attested from 1904.A folk
etymology is that this derives from Elizabethan theatre (i.e. late
16th century), where theater admission was collected in a box attached
to a long stick, passed around the audience; comparable to "bottle" in
Punch and Judy, where money was collected in a bottle. However, first
attestation is about 200 years later, making this highly unlikely.
public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction
at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket.
By extension, the term is frequently used, especially in the context
of the film industry, as a synonym for the amount of business a
particular production, such as a film or theatre show, receives.Box
office business can be measured in the terms of the number of tickets
sold or the amount of money raised by ticket sales (revenue). The
projection and analysis of these earnings is very important for the
creative industries and often a source of interest for fans. This is
predominant in the Hollywood movie industry.The term is attested since
1786, presumably from sales of boxes (private seating areas in a
theater). The sense of "total sales" is attested from 1904.A folk
etymology is that this derives from Elizabethan theatre (i.e. late
16th century), where theater admission was collected in a box attached
to a long stick, passed around the audience; comparable to "bottle" in
Punch and Judy, where money was collected in a bottle. However, first
attestation is about 200 years later, making this highly unlikely.
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