Saturday evening two family members had gone online and purchased two movie tickets before I got home. When I arrived they asked me if I wanted to join them and I did so we went back to the website and tried to buy one more ticket but unfortunately by that time the show was completely sold-out.
On the off chance there was anything to be done about this (and also to see if we could get the seats refunded over the phone and then goto a different show) we called ‘guest services’. We were told to come to the theatre and that they could likely help us.
So we we got there they confirmed it was still definitely sold-out, but they could bend the rules and help me out because there were a few seats that were “not in the system”. So I was handed a random stub (which they ripped and wrote the theatre-number on in pencil). Because it was not a real ticket, they explained they couldn’t even charge me for it so it was free!
So my question is, do all movie theatres keep a few seats empty for all shows? If so, why? Do other types of theatres typically do this too?
What’s likely happening is that there’s always a certain percentage of ticket buyers who don’t show up. Thus, they knew that even if their room has 200 seats and 200 tickets have been sold, there won’t actually be 200 people in the audience. So they can admit extra people.
That’s likely what people meant by seats not being in the system. Either that or there’s a secret underground world of movie theater seats. I presume that’s classified intel and even referring to it would
I know one movie theater (with reserved seating) which I frequent will hold their wheelchair accessible seats available for those who might need them until something like 20 minutes before showtime, at which point they’ll sell them to anyone, so you can sometimes get into a “sold out” screening at the last minute if you show up in person.
This anecdote is twenty years old, but I was once told by a theater owner that for anything other than massively popular showings, the theater will keep some seats free just for customer comfort – so there can be an empty seat next to an overweight or claustrophobic customer, or a few seats for a group to put their coats on, etc. Generally that customers don’t like every-seat-full theaters, and having just a seat or two per row open makes even the ones without an open seat next to them feel more comfortable psychologically.
I went to a theater here (Chicago) that you got a reserved seat if you bought a ticket online ONCE, and I’ll never buy online again. It sold everyone the same seat! And there were people who had major anxiety over sitting in a seat that didn’t have the number that was on their ticket.
We often had sold out sessions on weekends. But I never once saw a session where every seat was occupied, for several reasons.
One, as mentioned already, some ticket holders just don’t show up.
Two, “sold out” didn’t necessarily mean a ticket was sold for every seat. We did assigned seating. Once you get more than, let’s say 95% of seats sold, you’re left with single seats scattered throughout the cinema. Couples and groups will rarely accept those seats, and not many people go to the movies alone, so they’re hard to sell. We’d call a session sold out once it go to the point where no one was willing to buy the remaining seats. I don’t know, but I doubt we ever sold every single seat except perhaps for a private screening.
And three, there were a few special seats like removable ones for wheelchair access that we’d hold back till shortly before the session.
There was definitely no black market in undocumented seats or anything like that.
The situation in the OP with the hand-written ticket sounds like a discrepancy between their booking system (which is probably managed by a third party) and the cinema. Sounds like they take advantage of it to cover booking mistakes.
They’re called “house seats,” and are a common practice in cinema and live theater and concerts. A small percentage of seats are held back for exactly the reason you experienced: to give the manager flexibility to seat a customer he wants to take care of, for any reason: a late arriving VIP, an irate customer, his mother-in-law, whatever.
In theaters with reserved seats, they’re usually pretty good seats.
This answer very closely reflects the general impression I got from the litte tidbits of info the theatre employee mentioned in passing. Thanks Tellyworth, I think you nailed it!
This was interesting, I had not heard of house seats before but I’ve now found some good articles on google that mention them. It’s worth noting that the employee who gave me the free ticket was a bit sheepish/nervous about it, like when I was leaving the theatre I tried to somewhat subtly wave goodbye/thanks from a distance but she seemed to want to keep her response to an absolute minimum as if to avoid drawing attention to herself/why some random customer was so happy with her. So yeah, it was an under-the-table type of arrangement.
For what it’s worth, there were no house seats in the cinema I worked at, unless you count the wheelchair access seats. Some people were very fussy and vocal about seats and would definitely have noticed. I can only imagine the arguments it would have created if we were routinely holding back good seats.
I think from memory there was an allocation of a handful of comped tickets we could use for each session, for friends of the owner and so on, but they weren’t allocated to specific seats, and (if unused) they wouldn’t have prevented us from selling seats to the public. And they were rarely used. If we’d held back centre seats for them they would’ve been almost always vacant, and I expect we’d have had regular complaints from people who seemed to make a competitive sport of getting the best seats in the house.
Incidentally, everyone seemed to have a different opinion on which seats were best.
Airlines take advantage of this at the booking stage of the process. Suppose a 200 seat plane: they know that due to flight delays, people being late, whatever, if they sell 200 tickets only 190 of the ticket holders will show up. So instead they sell 210 tickets. If more than 200 of the ticket holders show up, they usually offer passengers incentives (cash, free flights, hotels) to be “bumped,” and usually there’s enough ticketholders on loose schedules that they can take that.
In the theater, the house seats are those reserved for the use of the cast and others in the production. At a certain point before the performance, any that aren’t being used are released to the box office and put up for sale. You used to be able to go to the box office for a sold out show and ask about them. House seats were not discounted, though; you’d pay the regular price for them. They are usually in excellent locations.
Most hit Broadway plays have no empty seats until the late stages of their run. They also fill spots by releasing seats to TKTS, which sells them at a discount.
Often, they are only supposed to be given to relatives or the like. Giving them to a stranger is probably against the rules.
My wife and I ran into an odd situation a couple of weeks ago. We wanted to see Skyfall, so rocked up to our local multiplex. They have a machine for buying tickets and choosing seats. We selected 2 tickets, and tried to allocate seats. The side areas were three seats wide and were all empty, and there were no two seat blocks in the main areas.
But the booking system will not allow you to take two seats from a three seat block (apparently a single seat on it’s own is a no-no). We had to rearrange our plans and go to a different showing. I was really pissed off at the time.
Believe it or not, that’s only rarely true. Most of the time (at least at the three airlines I flew for), airlines will specifically undersell what they have. There are many reasons for this, but I’ll cover just the three most prominent.
Price related blocking. If you were to price out something like a SFO - IAD return, in Y class, for today, you will see a dramatic difference in price, versus the same run (same time, same aircraft type) for three weeks from now. Purely economic reasoning dictates that this shouldn’t work --traditionally aging inventory should be discounted–, but in that business, it’s usually the other way round. In fact, most reservation systems, like SHARES or SABRE, will deliberately block out Y, Y+, J, & F seats and then progressively release them during the last week, day, and finally six hour period prior to the trip, right up until the flight closes an hour before departure. This keeps higher revenue fares in the system so that they are more likely usable by a given airline.
Weight. Just because an airplane has 200 seats, doesn’t mean they can sell 200 seats. On average, about 60% of all flights will leave an airport under some level of weight restriction. Though an Airline will offload Non-Revs, USPS, Cargo, Fuel, and finally baggage (in that order) to satisfy DX that a flight is runnable, they will also remove seats from reservations to ensure that the plane can actually get off the ground with enough fuel to get to its planned destination without a Tech stop.
Commuters/Crew rest. Virtually all airlines have clauses in their employee CBA’s that allow a certain number of seats to be blocked off for Commuting Pilots & Dispatchers. But this is done on a per-line basis, so though one flight may have zero seats roped off for this, the next may have 12; it all depends on what Crew lines are needed for that period.
As well, many aircraft due have dedicated Crew and flight attendant rest areas, but many also do not. For the latter, seats, usually in the back for FA’s and J class for Pilots, will be designated as crew rests, and will go out unsold.
I think the myth that planes go out oversold comes from anecdotal observations of Airlines offering incentives for folks not to board. But in almost all cases, this is not because the Airplane is even close to actual full, but just because leaving with the amount of PAX sold to (which most often includes those listed as Stand-By from previously cancelled flights) will not satisfy the above conditions. As well, gate agents saying “we’re oversold” is a lot simpler than trying to explain the above to literally every bumped PAX, so these little white lies are invented.
Maybe in addition to the answers above (which of course make sense, and are sufficient explanation), there are some “B grade” seats. The last time I was in a very busy theatre, the first seat which I tried sitting on had a wall cutting off some of the view of the bottom of the screen. And I’m a tall guy; someone else might find their view from that seat truly terrible.
Ditto the very front row.
So maybe it’s a business thing where you make the decision between calling 90% sold out; where everyone will probably get a decent seat, and 100% where X% of people are going to be pissed off.
Actually, most of the time I fly these days, the flights are truly full. I don’t like it, it makes me feel claustrophobic, uncomfortable, and tense. I definitely pay attention to it, though.