I am technically employed by The Ticket Factory. I say technically because I haven’t worked a show in quite some time (since March 4th 2020) and was stopped being paid furlough last summer. It is a job I miss a lot. It is a great company to work for and the people, my colleagues, are some of the best people I have had the fortune of meeting.
Yesterday, it was some staff member’s last official day at the company as redundancies had to come into effect. It is such a difficult time and the company has had little to no income since last March. There was always hope that it wouldn’t have to come to this, but the more time that passed the more inevitable it became.
It seems like a lifetime ago when I last worked a show. It was “An Evening with Whitney: The Whitney Houston Hologram Tour” – I hope that I do get to return to work at some point because that isn’t a show I want things to end on.
I think back to those weeks leading up to the first lockdown, watching more and more shows get postponed or cancelled, as we talked about the inevitability of it all ending. We didn’t think we still wouldn’t be back at this point in 2021 and it looks like we won’t be back for quite some time still.
Working at the arenas for TTF has made me a better person. I am more confident thanks to the customer facing work, met all sorts of people because of the variety of shows and have gained knowledge about how these shows work. It hasn’t always been easy but the memories I have are more good than bad.
It feels like the end of an era, as our tightly knit family has been pulled apart thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s poor handling of it.
We have worked some great shows together and also some not-so-good ones. Laughed a lot and even cried at times. I dread to think how many bags of sweets we have got through. I just hope – that when things are better – some of these colleagues and friends who have been shown the door are able to return because they are all wonderful people.
I miss my work. I miss the people. Hopefully, we will be back one day.
