Patron Services Manager, Gambrell Center for the Arts

Summary: The Patron Service Manager ensures an exceptional patron experience for the Gambrell Center for the Arts by anticipating patron needs, exceeding expectations, and creating a “wow” factor for guests. This position reports to the Executive Director of the Gambrell Center and manages a comprehensive set of responsibilities (marketing, ticket office, volunteers, and donor relations) to ensure the comfort and safety of guests.

The Patron Services Manager is responsible for establishing and implementing financial and operational procedures necessary to manage annual ticket sales, event volunteers and walk-in inquires. This role requires a dependable, self-motivated, conscientious individual capable of organizing a professional box office that delivers a high level of personalized customer service in a high traffic not-for-profit environment. The work is detail-oriented and varies greatly from day-to-day given the ongoing organizational transition to a fully staffed, operating facility.

This position is exempt from provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and therefore is not eligible to earn overtime pay or compensatory time off for additional hours worked. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Box Office & Member Management:

• Oversee all Box Office operations – processing single, season and group ticket orders in a timely and accurate manner. Establish procedures and policies that ensure excellent service to patrons, subscribers, donors, volunteers and patrons with special needs.
• Manage Box Office computerized ticketing system, setup events, reports and maintain accurate patron and donor records.
• Maintain membership database, send out renewals, prepare monthly membership reports.
• Work with the Executive Director to develop and implement marketing strategies that generate ticket sales, ad sales and media trades that meet budgeted income goals. Cultivate new audiences through target marketing initiatives. Promote facility use.
• Work with Marketing on mailing lists, customer service and special sales programs.
• Work with facility renters to set up effective box office services.
• Research artists, art forms and industry and community trends and educate staff.
• Assist with implementing corporate and media sponsorships.
• Create and manage an engaging social media presence on all platforms and protect the organizational brand. Ensure the theatre and events are accurately represented in the Media.
• Greet and direct walk-in traffic. Coordinate with the Executive Director consistent window and phone coverage during business hours.

Event Staff Supervision

• Enforce theatre policies and procedures and implement safety/emergency procedures.
• Schedule, train and supervise seasonal box office clerk(s) to ensure competency in all computer, financial and customer service operations.
• Recruit, train and schedule volunteer ushers, ticket takers, and bag checkers. Supervise and manage Volunteer program.
• Schedule, train and supervise part-time staff and house managers.
• House management and event coordination duties as needed.

Financial Reporting

• Establish and enforce box office procedures that ensure financial accountability for all staff.
• Work closely with the campus finance office to ensure all required fiscal requirements are met for tax, auditing, patron and internal reporting and control.
• Create weekly, show and annual reports for settlement, fiscal control and general box office reporting.

Non-Essential Duties:

• Other duties may be assigned as needed to achieve Gambrell Center and university goals.

Experience, Knowledge and Skills Required

• 2 years’ management, customer service and staff supervision experience, Box Office experience preferred.
• 2 years computer experience – Access, Word and Excel skills a plus.
• Proven skills in recruiting, selecting and developing a cohesive, high-performing team.
• Effective skills in budgeting, planning, and scheduling.
• Demonstrated organized and unflappable approach to work.
• Creative problem solver able to work effectively and efficiently with minimal supervision.
• Strong team player and positive can-do approach to work and challenges.
• Proven experience fostering a professional work environment that encourages teamwork and promotes diversity and inclusiveness.
• Excellent verbal, written, interpersonal and customer service skills and experience interacting with multiple and diverse constituencies (patrons, vendors, faculty, staff, community partners).
• Demonstrated organization and follow-up / follow-through skills to ensure objectives are met within established timeframes.
• Well-developed attention to detail, accuracy, and timeliness to effectively prioritize assignments and competing demands to meet given deadlines and objectives.
• Possess high levels of professional acumen, judgment, and leadership to serve in a variety of capacities, as needed, in the absence of the Executive Director.
• Proven ability to work effectively independently and as a member of a team.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of experience and education.
• Must be willing and able to work a flexible schedule to meet requirements of the position, including early mornings, nights, weekends and holidays.

Application Process

Does this sound like a good fit? Submit the following:

1. A cover letter addressing the position qualifications and experience.
2. Current résumé

Applications received by March 20, 2025, will receive first consideration. Queens will continue to accept applications until the position is filled.

About the Gambrell Center 

On the oak-lined corner of Selwyn and Wellesley in the heart of Charlotte’s Myers Park neighborhood, Queens University has provided a home for fine arts programs since 1966.  In 2020, this artistic home was transformed into the Sarah Belk Gambrell Center for the Arts and Civic Engagement expanding to 63,000 SF to include even more of the campus creative programs.  This vibrant cultural center now boasts acoustically stunning theatres and light-filled galleries as well as 3 floors of state-of-the-art learning spaces for academic arts programs.  Annually hosting over 600 events and 58,000 visitors, the Gambrell Center is the creative heartbeat of the campus featuring world-class performances in the Spotlight Series and many free cultural events produced by campus academic and student programs.  Together, these programs comprise the Arts at Queens.    

About Queens University of Charlotte

Located in the heart of the nation’s second fastest growing metropolitan area, Queens University of Charlotte leverages the city’s diverse and thriving environment as an extended classroom. Nationally recognized for undergraduate programs in international and interdisciplinary education, Queens blends the best of liberal arts learning with professional preparation and community engagement. Focused on supporting success for diverse learners, faculty build close and collaborative relationships with students and help them build intentional and individualized roadmaps for flourishing at Queens and beyond. At the graduate program level, the University offers innovative educational experiences that help learners advance professionally and retool for new opportunities. Our environs afford faculty myriad opportunities to advance their own professional growth and teaching and research interests by collaborating with vibrant industry, non-profit, and community organization sectors.

Because of our history of innovation and our legacy of strong leadership, Queens is positioned to be among the new forerunners of American higher education. This is a defining moment for Queens. While other institutions are focused on sustaining and surviving, we are thinking much bigger.

Institutions that understand what is needed and are willing to reimagine what is possible can position themselves to thrive and strengthen their market position after the pandemic with innovative approaches that are deeply connected to the world and its greatest challenges.

By 2030, Queens aspires to become the leading, private, national university of Charlotte with deep, meaningful, and reciprocal connections to the needs of our local community and economy; inventive and multidisciplinary academic programs that are connected to the world’s most pressing challenges and biggest areas of opportunity; a fully connected, integrated, and innovative set of experiences that support holistic wellness and wellbeing; a culture of continuous improvement and investment that enables faculty and staff to flourish and achieve their full potential; and a comprehensive approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion that begins on campus and radiates throughout the community.

Queens University of Charlotte aims to be a leading comprehensive university, distinguished by its commitment to transforming the lives of its students and enhancing the intellectual and cultural fabric of its community. Queens is a campus where diversity, equity, and inclusion are core values. The mission of Queens is to provide transformative educational experiences that nurture intellectual curiosity, promote global understanding, encourage ethical living, and prepare individuals for purposeful and fulfilling lives. To this end, the University recruits talented faculty, staff, and students from across the United States and around the world. Queens encourages applications from women, people of color, people with disabilities, and members of other protected classes and historically minoritized communities. The University also invites applications from individuals who are prepared to provide a rich and varied educational experience to our increasingly diverse student body and to collaborate with colleagues to make Queens an equitable and inclusive place to live, learn, and work.

Queens works to provide an accessible living, learning, and working environment for current and prospective faculty, staff, and students and visitors to our campus. If there are accommodations, we can provide to make your application process more accessible, please contact the Director of Human Resources (hr@queens.edu, 704-337-2297). The position duties and responsibilities listed above should be able to be completed with or without reasonable accommodations. HR works in partnership with employees to manage the workplace accommodations process.

Benefits

Queens offers comprehensive benefits to eligible employees, including: medical, dental and vision insurance, domestic partner benefits, a 403b retirement plan, with two options (pre-tax or post-tax (Roth) contributions) with a generous match, vacation and generous paid holidays, tuition remission and tuition exchange, Queens-paid life insurance, supplemental life insurance, dependent life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, disability insurance, flexible spending accounts (medical, dependent care, Health Savings Account), sick leave and long-term disability leave, paid parental leave, FMLA leave when eligible, reduced cost meals at Morrison Dining Hall, employee assistance program (EAP), free access to the Levine Center, wellness programs. In addition, employees may choose benefits such as pet insurance, critical care insurance and legal assistance.