I believe I’ve found the single exception to the American obsession with convenience. For once, you insist on doing things the hard way.
And yet, I’ve never encounterd a scalper here. What idiot would pay more to a scalper if you can just see a different screening?
I show up to the theater early to get the specific seats I want and wouldn’t have it any other way. You must not have seen the news reports about American fans waiting in line for weeks to get tickets and seats for “The Phantom Menace”.
I could see it during the opening run of a highly anticipated film. I didn’t say that it was currently happening.
But Ticketmaster, for instance, has ruined the concert experience. Back in the 1970s, tickets were sold from the front of the hall to the back. If you wanted good seats, you waited in line for however long at the box office. Those who were most willing to make this sacrifice got into the front of the hall. The performers (who can’t really see more than the first few rows due to the lighting) got a great crowd of their biggest fans. In the post-Ticketmaster era, the best tickets are sold directly to scalpers and the people in the front row are those who can give hundreds or thousands to scalpers.
I’d hate to wait in line for a movie and be told that I couldn’t get my favorite seats because someone else had already bought it.
In the L.A. area (and I would think New York would be the same), there are very few films that are very hard to get into because of the greater number of screens available.
Arclight’s reserved seating works because they are appealing to a niche crowd as L.A. has enough people who are film snobs to make it work. Or at least it has so far. Arclight is often the theater chosen for films that come out in December for Oscar consideration only. It’s where I saw “There Will Be Blood.”
How do you feel when you wait in line for a movie and you don’t get your favourite seats because someone else was already sitting there?
There’s nothing wrong with assigned seating if you can choose the seats you want anyway. It’s really not that different to the US status quo.
That’s why we show up early. It’s quite simple actually…whoever gets there first gets first choice.
Sitting at home and picking out a seat via a web browser is not the same as waiting in line to do so. You prefer a system that asks nothing of you apparently, and I prefer one that rewards initiative.
Personally, I would pay a couple of bucks extra to see a movie that really enforced a no-talking/no-GameBoy/no-cell phone movie experience.
The Alamo Drafthouses can be really nice. They also specialize in showing old movies also.
A few years a go, the one here in town decided to have a special feature, one night only, to show all the Mad Max films in one seating. To kick it off, they had the original Mad Max car on display at a small car show one day, and had a special “treat” where they drove a large tanker semi down Interstate 10 to the theater. Of course, the tanker had a woman on top with a fake machine gun, and Mad Max style cars driving along side it. It did seem to upset some people driving down the road who didn’t know just what was going on, and thought maybe it was some kind of terrorist thing.
I believe there were some arrests made. Sounds like a real fun promotion.
Well, I did specifically mention that this would be the split when Indiana Jones comes out next week. When theaters do the 90/10 split, that’s for the first weekend only, typically, and the longer the theater keeps the film the greater percentage the theater gets. You are certainly right that some larger chains are getting away from this set up, but not all of them yet.
But the main point I was trying to make is about the Director’s Hall seating specifically. When they charge an extra fee for those specific rooms, the theater is keeping that money - or at least most of it. Though the general viewing audience would never notice this, some theaters will not show films from certain production companies in those rooms because they will not agree to let the theater keep that extra cash. But keeping that extra money is the whole point of the Director’s Hall in the first place… even if they tell you it’s to “provide a higher level movie experience” or something of the sort.
So the extra couple bucks is not factored in to the normal split percentage.
True. It’s better.
Buying tickets online is not a prerequisite, and may not even be an option in some cinemas, anyway.
I guess I will never understand, then, because I reiterate - there’s no difference. If you show up early, you can buy your tickets and choose your seats at the counter. Then you can go play video games or visit the book shop or have a pizza or whatever, until the movie starts. And you get the seats you want because you got in early. The only tangible difference I can see is: the seats were chosen at an earlier moment and you don’t waste hours of your day hanging out in a line.
A potential downside I see here is if people start buying the good tickets (near the center of the theatre) and proceed to rush in at the last minute, squeezing past other patrons to get to their seats during the trailers.
Not to say that would happen all the time, or even often, but having the center seats get filled up by the earlier arrivals would prevent it.
In my experience, most people are already seated by the time the lights go off. You have a trickle of people coming in during the previews, which can be a bit annoying, but not nearly as annoyng as the mad rush to seats you have in American theaters.
One of the reasons I don’t go to movie theaters very often is because I have to show up so early to ensure I get a good seat. On the other hand; I certainly wouldn’t pay all that much extra for assigned seats. So I’m certainly not a good indicator of what the market might bear.
Marc
I’m thinking your screwed if the person next to you stinks or keeps sniffing. No last minute I’m not sitting by a group of teens decision to be made.
Sure you can. You can sit wherever you want - the only thing is, if someone comes up to you and tells you you’re sitting in their seat, you scoot over. There’s no arbitrary enforcement. Plenty of times, I’ve changed seats after the film started, when I saw no-one else was coming in.
If the room isn’t packed there’s no probelm with moving. If the room IS packed, well, there’s not much you can do with non-reserved seats, either.
In Thailand, all cinema seating is assigned, whether it’s a luxury theater or a regular one.