No, and I don’t buy anything either, 99% of the time.
You folks who don’t buy anything and don’t sneak anything in. . .y’all are just freaks, y’know? 
You left out “No, because I don’t eat anything when I go to the cinema.”
Re: Beer. Beer is routinely sold in Thai cinemas. However, and unbelievably for many, this is the one place Siam Sam does not consume it. Shock! But I don’t want to have to be running off to the pisser and miss any of the film. I did use to sneak it in back in the US for special midnight shows like Rocky Horror, though.
As for ticket prices, we’ll be seeing New York, I Love You later today (Saturday) at a ticket price of 100 baht (US$3) each in a beautiful old art-deco cinema. The popcorn will cost us the equivalent of 90 cents apiece. 
I’m not sure how common/uncommon this is, but around here they don’t care too much about cold/sealed snacks, cold drinks can be poured into movie cups and then allowed in, hot drinks are officially not allowed, but no one really minds, hot food is not allowed.
When we lived in western Maryland, our local movie theater was in a mall, and apparently it was a requirement of their lease that they allow other mall merchandise into their theater. Obviously, they didn’t advertise this, but my middle daughter dated one of the theater employees for a while. . .
Anyway, after that, we would blatantly bring in bags from Wal Mart and drinks from Auntie Anne’s!
I like the way you think.
I have a capacious (is that a word?) purse, and put it to good use on the rare times we go to the movies. My husband spends $20 or so on concession food; I think it’s insane.
As a theater employee, we have a policy against outside food or drink, but it’s only enforced if you’re dumb enough to blatantly carry it in. We know that anyone carrying a small Target bag into a theater is smuggling in candy, but we don’t really care that much. Personally, I smuggle in candy to competitor’s theaters. My theater gives me free popcorn, so it’s not necessary.
There’s a theater like that here. They have waiters serving beer and food, very comfortable chairs, and they show first run movies. My tactical carbine class went there to see Blackhawk Down, which is known for its realistic sound effects, so we appreciated the good sound system.
I once snuck in a couple cans of Pepsi to a movie when going to see it with a friend. He didn’t know I had them on me, so I waited for the first really silent, immersive scene of the film… and… *KRACK!FIZZZZzzz
We had a good laugh. And I handed him his own can.
Next movie, we meet up find our seats, and the film starts rolling. Now it was his turn to KRACK one on me, only this time it was beer. Even funnier, and tastier.
I take snacks in if I remember to AND I also movie hop–going into a second movie after the first one is over.
Actually, it’s all kind of a moot point since I probably only go to a movie theater once a year now since I’m a big Netflix fan. The DVDs arrive in the mail and I can watch them when I want and eat what I want. : )
I should point out that, while the vast majority of movie theaters have policies against outside food and drink, the vast majority of movie theater *employees *absolutely don’t give a shit, so you really don’t have to go to any great lengths to hide it. As the poster above explained, walking in with a flimsy plastic bag filled with soda bottles and noisy boxes of candy is almost never going to raise any eyebrows.
Also, it’s absolutely true that theaters make the bulk of their money from concessions. As of a few years ago, the standard split on ticket income was 80/20 in favor of the studios. I remember a kerfuffle some years back when some huge sequel (Spider-Man 2?) was coming out and the studio mandated that any theaters wishing to carry it would have to give 90% of the gross ticket sales to the studio. They got their wish.
In college, I had some friends who worked at the movie theater closest to campus. They had no problem getting friends in to see movies for free whenever they wanted, but free refreshments were absolutely verboten – management counted the cups, popcorn bags, etc.
I’m a little surprised to see that hardly anyone here has a problem breaking the theater’s rules. Certainly many of the people who are avowed snack-sneakers would have an ethical objection to, for instance, downloading copyrighted music for free. If you’re one of those people, how do you explain the incongruity? Why is it ok to violate the terms that come with a movie ticket but not ok to violate the terms that come with a digital music file?
ETA: For the record, I sneak food into theaters and download free music, both on a rather small scale. I’m somewhat ambivalent about both.
Popcorn and drink are included when calculating the cost of the movie. I’ll buy a fountain drink for my kid. I will smuggle in a Mountain Dew, cause the theater sells Coke products only. Also I only need 12 ounces, not 100 ounces which seems to be the smallest size they sell. Can anyone make it all the way through a movie if they drink that much? I sure can’t.
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I don’t have a problem with downloading music.
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Buying a movie ticket in no way means you must buy concessions. No way in hell would I ever spend $6 on a hot dog or $5 for a soda at the movies. Whether or not I bring in something, I still will not buy their food. They’re not losing any of my money because it was **never **going to be theirs in the first place.
What the hell, you are not stealing anything from the theater if you smuggle in your own stuff. They don’t like it, and I could see this rule violation being serious if you’re taking your own food into a restaurant. But the point of the theater is to show you a movie, not to feed you.
There are a couple where I live where the point is to feed you while showing you a movie. I wouldn’t bring outside food into those.
If the theaters are going to get all het up about it and start checking purses, well, I can wait until it comes out on DVD.
I have a movie purse that I use when I think about it. The biggest reason: most theatres don’t carry much in the line of diabetic friendly snacks.
I’ve been known to pack a couple of cans of diet soft drinks, cheese, jerky or something else with a bit of protein, a zippy of veggies or some sugar free candy.
Nor are you stealing anything from a record company if you buy a CD and then share it with a thousand people online. I don’t have a big problem with that, and I have even less of a problem with sneaking food into a theater. I’m just saying that if someone does have a big problem with one but not the other, it seems inconsistent.
Their limited choices, extortionate prices, and the fact I cannot stand popcorn, mean if I want snacks, I bring my own in.
I don’t go to the movies much, partly for this reason, and when I do I tend to forget to want snacks, anyway, so effectively my decision doesn’t impact anybody much.
When I was a kid, there’d be a few snacks I’d always choose, at every movie I’d go to. When I moved to Australia, they didn’t have the same snacks here. And now I hear they are no longer available in NZ either. Most disappointing.
You’re comparing apples to oranges. When I purchase a movie ticket, I am not required to also purchase their concessions. It’s the movie I’m paying to see, I don’t go there for their appalingly overpriced soda.