The term “box office” started in the early days of live theater. In the 1600s and 1700s, theaters did not have ticket windows or digital counters. Instead, staff carried a locked wooden box to collect money from each person entering the venue. At the end of the performance, the amount inside the box revealed how well the show had done.

In the early 1800s, theaters began keeping this money box in a small room near the entrance. People started calling that space the box office, meaning the place where the box of payments was handled. Over time, the phrase shifted from the physical room to the financial success of a performance.

Today, “box office” refers to both the place you buy a ticket and the revenue a show earns. But the name comes from a very simple beginning, when a wooden box measured the success of the night.