Once in college a bunch of us brought in Chinese. We kept it hidden until after the staff smelled it and made a show of trying to find us in the dark. Then we chowed down.
These days the most I’ll bring in is a candy bar or maybe a bottle of water.
I agree, although would add one alternative to your list, which is, “Buy a token item or two from the concession stand and smuggle in the rest,” which is what we do. We all like movie popcorn, so what I usually do when I see a movie with the kids is to smuggle in juice boxes for them, along with 3 extra popcorn boxes. (I have some cool red-and-white striped plastic ones I got from Target.) I order one large popcorn, and then when we get to the theater I divvy the popcorn up amongst everyone’s little popcorn boxes and pass out the juice boxes. Theater gets a little concession money from us, but we’re not breaking the bank to see a movie. Although I should be clear that we’re not doing this out of some altruistic concern for the movie theater’s bottom line. We just like movie popcorn.
I worked for a theatre chain long ago (well, I worked for an ad agency that had a theatre chain as a client, and I worked on the account) and this was indeed the case for that chain. It wasn’t necessarily the first week, but the longer the run was, the bigger the cut the theatre got. There were movies they lost money on, nobody wanted to see them, but they were contractually required to keep the movie and keep running it for x number of showings. Didn’t happen that way a lot, but part of my job was working on stuff to get people into the seats for those kinds of movies, usually on short notice. The worst one (that I remember) was Garbo Talks. For some reason, after its first showing, nobody wanted to see that one.
Nope. I don’t wanna get kicked out and I make sure to eat right before the movie so I am not hungry nor thirsty. Its my small fight against the way marked up prices of concessions stands.
Humm, you seem to have very authoritarian theatre rules. I have never heard of any such policy at theatres here, so I’d like an option along the lines of “No, I bring my snacks openly because there is no rule against it”.
ETA: On second thought, with the question phrased as it is, my answer is that I would be willing, if such a rule exists.
Cans of soda? CANS of soda? Never in a million years. One liter bottles of soda. Cracked open in the parking lot to get the initial ‘hiss’ out of the way. Then they will open quietly in the theatre. And drunk through the really long straws from the convenience store, so you don’t tilt it up in the air for everyone to see.
But yes, every single time. Along with popcorn from the concession stand.
Yeah, that’s pretty much true.
If memory serves, the theaters get 10% of the ticket sales for opening weekend, and something like 30% after that. Nowadays, ticket sales plummet dramatically after opening weekend. As such, theaters make very little off ticket sales.
To paraphrase Stephen Wright…
Sure, I haven’t had a barbecue in a long time…
No, I don’t like to eat in a theatre.
I just thought of a cool way to do this; go there, buy a small drink, save the empty cup, then if you take a drink in next time, simply pour it into the theaters cup.
If I remember to, I will. Usually I just bring in something to drink.
I try to see most movies during a matinee or a special early showing. I’ve got so many free popcorn tickets from the AMC moviewatcher, that I don’t even try to bring in food.
I sneak whiskey into theaters.
You’re wasting your effort; the employees don’t give a fuck. Though it can be fun to pretend you’re smuggling.
I used to stick to only bottles myself, hell, my record was a full two liter of Coke down the front of my baggy 90s jeans in high school. But others have noted in this thread that they not only bring cans, but crack them open in the theater without any attempt to muffle the sound or disguise it with a cough. There’s no repercussions.
The employees also don’t care because they’re not there. Ushers are a thing of the past most everywhere. I can remember men with little traffic cone flashlights that would guide you to a row of seats in the dark and hush rowdy folks, but I haven’t seen one in a major (non-indie/artsy/local) theater in at least a decade.
Sure, I get that, so long as you accept the same sort of reasoning from the music downloader. ‘They’re charging $10-$12 for something that I can get for $5 on the sidewalk and for free from a thousand places online. I want hundreds of albums a year, but I can’t come anywhere close to affording that, so I’ll just download whatever seems interesting, and occasionally I’ll buy something I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t listened to it for free first, and in the end their bottom line is hardly affected, if at all.’
But what if someone’s finances are such that it’s just not worth it for them to buy a movie ticket if they can’t use it to sneak into one or more extra movies? At that point they’re in the same exact situation as you and your snacks (assuming your theater does in fact ban outside food and drink . . . which you should probably ask about if you actually want to know the answer, instead of just hoping to see a sign).
My girlfriend and I routinely sneak beer in. The movie is more fun that way.
I’ve never done that only because I always have to drive.
Most of the time I don’t snack during movies at all, but on those rare occasions that I do bother, I definitely bring my own. Why pay outrageous prices for crappy candy when I can have good chocolate for less money?
Sometimes I wish they would sell, say, herbal tea, though.
Then they shouldn’t watch that second movie. Watching a particular movie not some unalienable right.
Having just come from the “how do people get so fat” thread, I find this discusion a little eyebrow-raising.
Its interesting that people have been conditioned by movie theaters to automatically want/expect big portions of extremely high-calorie foods when they sit down to watch a movie. So much so that its now common, apparently, for people to sneak these types of foods in.
Funny that no one has mentioned sneaking in a bag of carrot sticks.