Ticket Master to the Stars Retires
Otto Spoerri retired as controller of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on New Year’s Eve after a 24-year tenure. Spoerri was best known in Hollywood as the man who annually decided who sat where at the Academy Awards, a position of such clout that the Wall Street Journal once described Spoerri, 68, as “the ultimate arbiter of industry power.”
Over the decades, he decided whether Jack or Russell or Julia would get front row or aisle seats at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Shrine Auditorium. And he made certain that nominees from the same category were never seated together.
A native of Zurich, Switzerland, Spoerri received his bachelor’s degree from the Zurich Business College and moved to the U.S. in 1957. He worked in finance for a number of years before joining the academy.
Spoerri is staying on as a consultant through the 74th Academy Awards on March 24, the first Oscar ceremony in its new home at the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland complex. He then will return to Zurich to live and, he hopes, work part time. “I don’t want to sit on my fanny for seven days a week,” he says with a laugh.
Recently, Spoerri reminisced about his job.
Question: Did you start handling the tickets for the Academy Awards as soon as you became controller in 1978?
Answer: Two years before [1978], I was a staff accountant on a part-time basis and I got my first introduction to this crazy business at that time. When I became controller, I still had another lady who had been doing [the tickets] for, like, 40 years before she retired. She was my mentor. After the second year as controller, I had to take it over myself because she retired.
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Q: Has anybody gotten angry at his or her seat placement?
A: I am sure people have gotten angry, although I haven’t had direct confrontation with anybody. They probably swore at the four walls and cursed me up and down.
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Q: How is the seat allotment broken down?
A: Studios get an allotment of tickets based on their nominations. Then we have the nominees coming, and then we have the honored guests, who are a list of maybe 40 different people who are guests of the academy, from the governor to the mayor and police chief, and you have past presidents of the academy and certain obligations to some of the major contributors to the academy.
So once all of that is in place and you know the basic requirements for the nominees, then you start to get the phone calls from the studios saying this nominee would like to have two more seats.
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Q: Do you work closely with the Academy Awards show producer in planning the seating?
A: Mainly the director.... Some directors like to seat the nominees by picture. For instance, all of the “Crouching Tiger” people were more or less in the same area. All of “Erin Brockovich’s” nominees are in the same area. Another director might do it strictly by category. But he never puts two leading actors next to each other. A supporting actor or actress always separates them. So what that does, it gives the director a picture in the camera where he has all the various nominees and personalities spread out through the whole width of the auditorium.
I also think it’s more diplomatic to separate the five best male acting people [for example]. I am sure they are all on a friendly basis, but I think it’s smarter to separate them a little bit. You don’t want to see a sad face next to a happy face.
We only do this with the four acting categories, best picture and best director. The rest of the categories, I play my own little game as to who might be the favorites, so I can sit them near the aisle. It doesn’t always work out, and sometimes somebody has to climb over 10 or 12 people.
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Q: Was it easier to plan the seating arrangement for the Chandler or the Shrine Auditorium?
A: Obviously, the Music Center is much more comfortable, but Shrine Auditorium is much wider, so you can bring everybody farther down as far as access to the stage.
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Q: Are there last-minute changes for ticket requests?
A: Oh sure. It happens every year. Maybe a performer or a presenter in the last minute decides they don’t want to sit in the audience; they want to sit in the green room [the backstage reception area]. Or, all of a sudden, even though they said they wanted to be in the green room, they decided they want to sit in the audience, which is the worst case because all of a sudden you have to scramble.... What I learned early on was to keep eight or 10 pairs [of tickets] in my back pocket for situations like that.... You can bring [academy] members who sit further back [closer to the stage]. They will be thrilled to all of a sudden move into the fifth or sixth row.
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Q: Have you been working with the new controller, Andy Horn, on all the ins and outs of the academy tickets?
A: When I was controller, I had both the financial responsibility of the academy and the seating for the show and the Governors Ball. Now it is split. We have the controller, who strictly deals in the financial area, and we [will] have a gentleman whose new title is membership administrator. The whole ticketing deal falls under the membership office. This year, it will be much more intensified because next year I am not going to be here. Plus, it’s a new venue.
The place [the Kodak Theatre] is obviously much smaller than the Shrine, so you will not be able to accommodate all the [academy] members who want tickets. The only great thing about the Shrine is we could accommodate every member who wanted to go. Now, it is going to be a lottery. It will take three years for everybody to get a chance to go.
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Q: You’re retiring in Zurich. Do you think you’ll come back to see the Oscars?
A: Yes. The boss promised me two tickets as long as I live. I’ll have to make sure my successor puts me in a decent seat.
