{{Short description|Office selling event tickets}} {{for-multi|the movie box office|Film industry|total movie ticket sales|Lists of highest-grossing films|the publication|BoxOffice (magazine)|the Aja album|Box Office (album)}} {{redirect|Booking office|airline booking offices|city ticket office}} [[File:Ohio Theatre booth.jpg|thumb|Box office at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Ohio]] [[File:box-office-6692.JPG|thumb|Folk festival box office in Edmonton, Alberta]] [[File:NPHS Performing Arts Center Ticket Window.jpg|thumb|Ticket window at North Port High School Performing Arts Center]]
A '''box office''' or '''ticket office''' is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons can 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 metonym 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 an arena or a stadium.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/box%20office |title=box office |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005002940/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/box%20office |archive-date=2018-10-05 |url-status=dead |website=Merriam-Webster}}</ref>
==Etymology== Ceramic money boxes were used at the sixteenth-century Globe Theatre and Rose 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.{{efn|Thomas Dekker, in his ''The Gull's Horn Book'' of 1609, is the first on record to use ''box'' in the theatrical sense. He described boxes as: crammed spaces "in the suburbs of the stage" from which to watch a performance.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dekker |first1=Thomas |author1-link=Thomas Dekker (writer) |editor1-last=Nott |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Nott (physician) |title=The Gull's Horn Book |date=1609 |publisher=John Gutch |location=Bristol |pages=134–5 |edition=1812 |oclc=3162821}}</ref>}}<ref><ul class="references"> Multiple sources: *{{cite web |last1=Croker |first1=Ollie |title=Collecting cash at Shakespeare’s plays |url=https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/collecting-cash-at-shakespeares-plays/#:~:text=Fragments%20of%20Tudor%20and%20Stuart,smashed%20to%20reveal%20the%20takings.&text=The%20tops%20of%20money%20pots,excavation%20of%20the%20Rose%20theatre. |website=London Museum |access-date=15 August 2025 |language=en-gb}} *{{cite book |last1=Hendrickson |first1=Robert |title=The Facts on File encyclopedia of word and phrase origins |date=1997 |publisher=Facts on File |location=New York |isbn=0-8160-3266-1 |page=96}} *{{cite web |last1=Appleton |first1=Stephanie |title=Shakespeare in 100 Objects: Money Pot |url=https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/shakespeare-100-objects-money-pot/ |publisher=Shakespeare Birthplace Trust |access-date=26 May 2024 |date=3 May 2013}} </ul></ref>
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 for theatre boxes were sold. This is the derivation favoured by the Oxford English Dictionary.<ref name=oed>{{Cite OED|box office}}</ref>
== Related terminology == {{Main|Film industry|List of highest-grossing films|Lists of highest-grossing films}} <!-- Note, this section's title is the target of several redirect pages, please do not change section name without fixing the redirects. -->
Total movie ticket sales were being termed ''box office'' from at least 1904.<ref name=oed/><ref>{{cite web |last1=Harper |first1=Douglas |title=box-office(n.) |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/box-office |website=etymonline |access-date=14 August 2025}}</ref> ==Notes== {{notelist}} ==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == {{Wiktionary}} * {{Commons category-inline|Box offices}}
{{Film box office}}
Category:Film and video terminology Category:Film box office Category:Parts of a theatre Category:Stage terminology Category:Tickets