Assigned seating in movie theaters (1 Viewer)

[Wayne_j]

Except for if you are seated next to annoying people and you want to move but you can't because your seat was reserved.

 

[Bryan^H]

That's the point. No more having to go early to get a good seat. Now it just the click of a button. No more waiting on line for two hours before a big movie to get a good seat. I really can't think of any disadvantage to reserved seating.

I will get used to it.

 

[macfan601]

So we are out and on the spur of the moment decide to go to a movie, Whoops I guess that is out now because all of the good seats are spoken for. Guess I will vote with my wallet and just go to my home theater where you can choose your seat, come as you are, and when you want. Refreshments are amazingly cheap. You can pause the movie to go to the restroom and no one gets upset too. Sorry, I will pass on reserved/assigned seating.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

What about times when only about 10 people come to a showing? Seems like you could still pick any seat you wanted as long as it wasn't someone else's. My local IMAX does assigned seating and that's one reason I don't go there much (price is another!) I can't tell where the best seats are just by looking at their seating chart outside- I've gotten crappy seats and often the good seats were taken by people who didn't appreciate them anyways. They should have reserved seats near the back corner of the theater for the idiots who want to talk and leave before the movie's over, then maybe I wouldn't notice them so much.

 

[TravisR]

We're living in a society so I'll respect the laws but to me, movie theater seats are first come first served. I don't care if someone reserved a seat online. If the seat is empty or not noted as being reserved, it's mine and you should have gotten there earlier if you wanted that seat. The only way to reserve a seat is to put your ass in it.


That also raises the scenario that if I come early on a busy night, get a good seat and then someone else comes up 5 minutes before the movie starts (or once the movie has already started) when most of the seats are taken, I now have to move to a far worse seat? That's absurd to me. I mostly go to matinees so this is unlikely to be a real issue for me but I don't need anyone telling me where I can or can't sit in a movie theater.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Anyone else have a local theater go to assigned seating?

Mine did, and I hate it. It just seems too prestigious for just shuffling in to catch a movie.

It makes things worse when people come in late after the lights go down looking for their seat in a crowded theater.

I used to love the freedom of going into an empty theater and have the pick of seats. No more.

Also if there are some obnoxious people ahead or close behind me, I always had the option to get up, and move.

Bryan,


What city is your local theater located?

 

[Patrick Sun]

It's a paradigm shift.


I think it's useful for opening weekend type of movie-going for super-popular movies (a la The Avengers 2), but when attendance/demand is nowhere near full, reserve seating is not as useful to the patron.

 

[Bryan^H]

Bryan,

What city is your local theater located?

Muskegon Mi.

 

[davidmatychuk]

My worldly cousin Gloria and I walked up to the box office of Vancouver's Odeon on Granville (on the left of the picture of our long-gone Theatre Row) early in 1965 to pick up tickets for a showing of "Lord Jim" the following week. The cashier asked us which showing on which day, and pulled three printed tickets out of a large wooden wall rack behind her. I've always associated reserved seating for movies with class and quality, but I come by it honestly.

 

[davidmatychuk]

I just found this super-classy print ad online:


https://books.google.ca/books?id=m0gEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA22-IA3&ots=sAsBmIJhcx&dq=Lord%20Jim%20Odeon%20Granville%20Vancouver&pg=PA22-IA3#v=onepage&q=Lord%20Jim%20Odeon%20Granville%20Vancouver&f=true

 

[Robert Crawford]

Muskegon Mi.

Which movie chain as they haven't done that in Saginaw yet?

 

[DaveF]

Alamo Drafthouse introduced me to reserved seating. I love it. I can reserve days ahead of time to guarantee a good seat. If I'm thinking of going spur of the moment, I can check the seating map and see if there's any good seats left and plan accordingly. No more am I showing up early, hoping for a decent seat, and wasting time sitting in a theater watching the third loop of a boring trivia slideshow.

This is also a real boon for going to movies with friends or family: I can check and guarantee we're all seated together when picking the movie. No more standing in the aisles, blocking traffic, scanning for empty seats, arguing with strangers over whether a coat represents a legal claim to an otherwise empty seat.

We're living in a society so I'll respect the laws but to me, movie theater seats are first come first served

Yes, that's exactly right. Except the meaning of "first served" is no longer who shows up at the box office door first. It's who buys the ticket first. This is a good thing. It expands opportunity for being first from maybe thirty minutes ahead of show time to a week ahead, when tickets go on sale.

It also makes getting to a movie less stressful: you don't have to play the guessing game as to whether you'll have a seat, when you you leave the house, what's traffics like, is it time to bail on the restaurant early because all the decent seats are gone....

All that barbarism is gone! Go to dinner, have a relaxing time out. Show up at the theater ten minutes ahead of showtime, and take your seats. Easy peasy.

 

[DaveF]

It's a paradigm shift.

I think it's useful for opening weekend type of movie-going for super-popular movies (a la The Avengers 2), but when attendance/demand is nowhere near full, reserve seating is not as useful to the patron.

It tells me ahead of time demand is low, gives me a great seat. I'm no longer wasting time in an empty theater because I guessed wrongly demand was high when it was nil.

 

[Richard V]

That's the point. No more having to go early to get a good seat. Now it just the click of a button. No more waiting on line for two hours before a big movie to get a good seat. I really can't think of any disadvantage to reserved seating.

As mentioned before, the only drawback is the loud, obnoxious person sitting near you.

 

[TravisR]

Yes, that's exactly right. Except the meaning of "first served" is no longer who shows up at the box office door first. It's who buys the ticket first. This is a good thing. It expands opportunity for being first from maybe thirty minutes ahead of show time to a week ahead, when tickets go on sale.

It's a fine concept but in the real world, I don't see how it works in a practical sense. What if someone buys tickets online 10 minutes before the movie starts and I've already purchased my ticket and am already sitting in that seat? By any interpretation, I bought a ticket first and I was sitting there first but now I have to move because they bought a ticket online. The only fair way that I can see this working is for the theater to have a cut off point for reserving seats (say just before the end of the previous screening/before people can start seating for the next show) and then a theater employee marks all reserved seats. That would require the theater to step up to make the process smooth by hiring more ushers to do those things. The only problem is that there's no chance of the theaters ever doing that because it'll cost them money to have more employees.


What if I've reserved the seat and some tough SOB is sitting there? I'm not a shrinking violet but at the same time, I don't feel like getting beat up because I told some knucklehead to move from an apparently open seat.


What if someone brings a family of 5 and then they have to move because someone reserved a seat they're in. If it's crowded and they can't get 5 more seats in a row, should their 5 year old get a seat away from the rest of the family?


Like I said, I almost exclusively go to matinees so this probably isn't going to be a big deal to me but I just don't see how this is widely applied in a practical way without the theater denoting the reserved seats and having a cut off time to get them.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

It's a fine concept but in the real world, I don't see how it works in a practical sense. What if someone buys tickets online 10 minutes before the movie starts and I've already purchased my ticket and am already sitting in that seat? By any interpretation, I bought a ticket first and I was sitting there first but now I have to move because they bought a ticket online. The only fair way that I can see this working is for the theater to have a cut off point for reserving seats (say just before the end of the previous screening/before people can start seating for the next show) and then a theater employee marks all reserved seats. That would require the theater to step up to make the process smooth by hiring more ushers to do those things. The only problem is that there's no chance of the theaters ever doing that because it'll cost them money to have more employees.


What if I've reserved the seat and some tough SOB is sitting there? I'm not a shrinking violet but at the same time, I don't feel like getting beat up because I told some knucklehead to move from an apparently open seat.


What if someone brings a family of 5 and then they have to move because someone reserved a seat they're in. If it's crowded and they can't get 5 more seats in a row, should their 5 year old get a seat away from the rest of the family?


Like I said, I almost exclusively go to matinees so this probably isn't going to be a big deal to me but I just don't see how this is widely applied in a practical way without the theater denoting the reserved seats and having a cut off time to get them.

If all the seats are reserved, presumably everyone sits in the seats they already chose. You seem to think people are going to wander into the theater without previously-chosen seats, but it doesn't work that way.


Do you have this much animosity toward the concept of reservations elsewhere? Do you grab whatever seat you want at a concert and tell the actual ticketholder "tough luck - I was here first"? Do you go to restaurants, grab an open table and stake your claim?

 

[Colin Jacobson]

The movie goer picks the seat they want(of what is available at the time of ticket purchase) after that the seat they choose is their assigned spot. Tough luck if you want to move for any of the annoying reasons I mentioned earlier.

You can still move if there are empty seats - it's not like someone's going to force you to remain where you are.


In that sense, it's no different than a general admission showing. If the movie starts and you want to move, then you can move. I guess you might have to worry about a late-arriving patron who reserves the seat you grab, but that doesn't seem like much of a concern...

 

[TravisR]

If all the seats are reserved, presumably everyone sits in the seats they already chose. You seem to think people are going to wander into the theater without previously-chosen seats, but it doesn't work that way.

If everyone has a specific seat then that makes sense and solves a number of problems that I see with the idea.

Do you have this much animosity toward the concept of reservations elsewhere? Do you grab whatever seat you want at a concert and tell the actual ticketholder "tough luck - I was here first"? Do you go to restaurants, grab an open table and stake your claim?

That analogy doesn't work because generally everyone has a specific seat at a concert and I wouldn't be seated at a table in a restaurant if some already had a reservation. If I was given a seat at a restaurant by an employee and then they came back and said "Sorry, you gotta move because that seat was already reserved" then I would have a problem with that.

 

[Sam Posten]

My local AMC has reserved seat for its IMAX theater. At first I hated it but now I love it. Buy my tickets online, pick my seats. Show up 15 minutes before and I'm set. No loooong lines anywhere. LOVE IT.

This

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Everyone has a reserved seat. You can't check out and pay without selecting your seats. You have to willfully sit somewhere else in order to violate the process.


And there is one downside that I will admit to. Without the need to "fight" for seats, I've noticed more people show up at showtime, and are taking their seats during the trailers, and occasionally even during the first minute or two.