{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/ushers-lobby-attendants-and-ticket-takers/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Ushers, Lobby Attendants, and Ticket Takers", "soc_code": "39-3031", "category": "Personal Care", "us_employment": 121770, "median_annual_wage": 32910 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 42, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 12, "embodiment": 15, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 6 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Your ticket-taking half is already gone at any venue that installed self-scan gates and phone e-tickets, but nothing digital walks a lost patron down a dark stair aisle mid-performance, holds a late seating until intermission, or reads a crowd surge at the exit doors — that split of duties, roughly half absorbed by hardware and half untouched, is exactly what a 12 describes rather than a 16.", "embodiment": "You work standing for a four-hour event in a concourse or raked seating bowl, on stairs, often in the dark, in weather at gates and outdoor amphitheaters, moving through crowds you don't control — that's uncontrolled-environment work, and it sits at 15 rather than 19 only because the venue itself is a fixed, mapped, lit-when-needed space, not a construction site or a roadside.", "liability_shield": "There is no state licence to take tickets or seat guests; where NFPA 101 and state fire codes require trained crowd managers, the training is a few hours provided by the venue and the legal exposure for an injury or a failed evacuation lands on the operator's insurer, not on your name — hence 1 and not 5.", "trust_premium": "Season-ticket holders in your section learn your face over a year and ask for you when a seat is wet or a neighbor is drunk, and touring theatres keep ushers whose regulars expect them — but the guest bought the game or the show, not you, and a substitute usher at gate 12 tonight causes nobody to cancel, which puts this at 8 rather than the mid-teens.", "judgment_accountability": "Most calls you make are already written down: check the stub, seat only at scene breaks, no re-entry without a hand stamp, radio security for anyone intoxicated or fighting rather than intervening yourself — the genuinely ambiguous decisions, like whether to start clearing an aisle before the house manager says so, get escalated, and that thin margin of real discretion is what keeps this at 6 instead of 3." }, "rationale": "The core of this job — scanning tickets, checking seat numbers, directing people to sections — is happening in a physical venue with unpredictable crowds, which language models cannot touch, but self-scan turnstiles and phone-based e-tickets have already eaten the ticket-taking half. What persists is the crowd-facing half: spotting an intoxicated patron, walking a wheelchair user to accessible seating, running an aisle during an evacuation, and being the face guests ask when something goes wrong. Displacement pressure here comes from cheap hardware and venue staffing cuts, not from AI reasoning.", "outlook": "Headcount per venue keeps shrinking as self-scan gates spread, but live events still need bodies in the aisles for safety and accessibility, so the role concentrates into fewer, more safety-and-guest-service oriented positions.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Venue occupancy/egress codes that specify minimum trained crowd-manager ratios per occupant load — NFPA 101's crowd manager requirement (1 per 250 occupants, tightened after Astroworld) being adopted and enforced in more state fire codes, plus insurer conditions on event cancellation/liability policies requiring certified crowd managers on every aisle. This makes a trained human body legally countable rather than optional.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 6 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Task-mix shift: once scanning is fully self-serve, what remains is the discretionary tier — ejection decisions, intoxication refusals, ADA accommodation calls, evacuation routing. If venues formalize this by designating ushers as documented incident-report authors whose written account is the record used in injury litigation (as some arena operators already do post-Astroworld), the role owns consequential calls.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Same two-tier shift: the routine half is largely gone already, so the measured residual is judgment-and-crowd work. Formal certification (IAVM/Crowd Manager, ALICE-style active-threat training) written into venue contracts would lock the remaining tier as non-automatable.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Narrow route only: premium-seating and hospitality tiers where a named seat host is part of the ticket price, plus ADA guest-services roles where disability advocacy groups push back on kiosk-only accommodation intake. This does not extend to general admission.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "The binding threat is venue labor-cost cutting, not model capability, so capability-side gains are limited. Even with full NFPA crowd-manager adoption, headcount can be met with fewer, better-trained staff — the occupation's score can rise while its employment falls." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 124710, "wage": 20820 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 133970, "wage": 22260 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 138160, "wage": 23500 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 95600, "wage": 25110 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 54970, "wage": 24440 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 98350, "wage": 27650 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 117560, "wage": 29780 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 119210, "wage": 31150 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 121770, "wage": 32910 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -2.4, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "maids-and-housekeeping-cleaners", "title": "Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 54, "median_wage": 35510, "overlap": 74, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Material Resources", "Management of Financial Resources", "Instructing", "Learning Strategies" ] }, { "slug": "bartenders", "title": "Bartenders", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "median_wage": 34340, "overlap": 61, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Management of Material Resources", "Learning Strategies", "Management of Financial Resources" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }