Will call is a North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n term for a box office

Box office

A box 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 an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....

 where patron

Patrón

Patrón is a luxury brand of tequila produced in Mexico and sold in hand-blown, individually numbered bottles.Made entirely from Blue Agave "piñas" , Patrón comes in five varieties: Silver, Añejo, Reposado, Gran Patrón Platinum and Gran Patrón Burdeos. Patrón also sells a tequila-coffee blend known...

s of entertainment venues go to pick up pre-purchased ticket

Ticket (admission)

A ticket is a voucher that indicates that one has paid for admission to an event or establishment such as a theatre, movie theater, amusement park, zoo, museum, concert, or other attraction, or permission to travel on a vehicle such as an airliner, train, bus, or boat, typically because one has...

s for an event, such as a play

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 or concert

Concert

A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...

, either just before the event, or in advance. With the onset of the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 and e-commerce sites, which allow customers to buy tickets online

ONLINE

ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....

, the popularity of this service has increased. The term is also used analogously in the wholesale and retail industry.

Details

Box office rules and hours vary. Some may not open until an hour before event time, while others may be open during regular business hours every day. Some buildings advise patrons to arrive very early to pick up tickets to avoid long lines.

History

In the days before the telephone, the phrase "I will call on you" was commonly used to mean that someone will visit you, or speak to you. The phrase has since largely fallen into disuse, with the word "call" being much more commonly associated with the telephone than speaking to someone in person. The term "will call", however, has stuck, and means that the customer "will call on" the company to pick up the tickets or merchandise, as opposed to having the items delivered to them.

In a linguistic process similar to initial-stress derived nominalization

Initial-stress-derived noun

Initial-stress derivation is a phonological process in English, wherein stress is moved to the first syllable of any of several dozen verbs when they become nouns or adjectives. This is called a suprafix in linguistics...

, the first syllable of the noun phrase is usually stressed ("WILL call") rather than the second syllable in the verb phrase ("will CALL").

United Kingdom

The equivalent term in the United Kingdom is COBO, an acronym for Care Of Box Office. Sometimes this term is only used internally in the box office/ticket office, with certain venues/sellers using the less confusing term "Collections" for the public. Normally in the UK the term used is 'at the door'; such as 'tickets can be collected at the door'.

Wholesale usage

In the wholesale and retail trade industry, a will call item is merchandise that is to be picked up at the seller's place of business. A will call memo is given to wholesale delivery drivers as an instruction to pick up items at the address stated on the memo. In the last twenty years or so, the term "pick up" is replacing the older term "will call".

Will call also refers to customers picking up merchandise in person for businesses that normally ship their products. This is sometimes done by the customer to save on shipping charges. The practice is often frowned upon by companies that are not designed for in-person sales, and others that make shipping an additional revenue stream (e.g. by charging the customer retail shipping prices while paying the courier a flat-rate wholesale shipping fee.) As a result, some companies ban will call pick ups or implement a will call charge for in-person pick ups.