Front of house
portions of a performance venue open to the public
In the performing arts, the front of house (FOH) is the part of a performance venue that is open to the public. In theatres and live music venues, it consists of the auditorium, and foyers, as opposed to the front stage and backstage areas. In a theatre, the front of house manager is responsible for welcoming guests, refreshments, and making sure the auditorium is set out properly. By contrast, back of house (BOH) is any operations that are not visible to the audience, such as props management, costume design, stage set fabrication, lighting control, and other support functions.
Both terms are also used in the restaurant, hospitality, and retailing industries. "Back of house" refers to any work operations that do not have direct customer contact. Examples include cooking, dishwashing, cleaning, shipping and receiving, maintenance and repairs, accounting, and other indirect support tasks which are not usually visible to customers.
Live venues
Sound operators, excluding the monitor engineers, are normally positioned in a small sectioned-off area front of house, surrounded by the audience or at the edge of the audience area. From this position they have unobstructed listening and a clear view of the performance, enabling the operation of the main speaker system, show control consoles and other equipment. In this case "front of house" can refer to both the general audience/public area or to the specific small section from where the show is mixed.
“Front of house” enters the record as portions of a performance venue open to the public. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Front, house and portions can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Front of house” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Front, house and portions provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1470095.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Front of house”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Front of house primary sources, Front of house archive and Front research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Front of house”?
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This entry incorporates text from “Front of house” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.