THE FUNCTIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE OF HOUSE MANAGEMENT

ABSTRACT

House Management is essential to any Theatre that wants to succeed; either profit or non-profit. House management concerns the selling of tickets, the ushering of audiences into the theatre and the maintenance of theatre building. However, Theatres have recently been experiencing a low turn-up rates from audiences. This is due to poor House management, a common problem in our present day theatres. This research aimed to enumerate and analyze the effective principles of house management that have been established over the years and also to profer solutions to the issue of outdated house management systems. This study reviewed several literary works that are related to the research being done. For the purpose of this study, the researcher adopted a structured questionnaire survey method to gather data. A sample size of 100 respondents was randomly selected from the four (4) undergraduate levels in the University of Benin Theatre Arts Department. Findings from the study revealed the University of Benin students' perception with regards to the functions and significance of house management in the UNIBEN Theatre which is poor especially in areas of security arrangement in the theatre environment, inadequacy of space, zero public relations and lack of ventilation. This study recommended that there should be clean and proper ventilation in the theatre, maximum security arrangement in theatre environment, a good public relations team to promote feedback mechanism and adequate provision of space in the theatre.