Monday, January 29, 2018

Riske Business: More Moviegoing Mysteries I Need to Solve

by Adam Riske
Asking the questions you thought of and then forgot in order to go on with your lives.

Read part one here.

• If I go to a 9:45pm show and I get out around 11:45pm, why are there no employees anywhere? They still need to close the theater, I’m assuming. Where does everyone go? Are they in the breakroom? Did they leave already? The desertion of the lobby makes going to the last show an eerie experience. One of these days I’m just going to re-create the “Where Is Everybody?” episode from The Twilight Zone as I’m leaving. “I have Stubs points and I’m hungry!”

• Why do people select reserved seats right next to another person when the rest of the theater is empty? Are they not paying attention to where the seating chart initially selected them to sit? Also, why does the seating chart not have the impulse to spread people out but instead pack them next to each other? When this happens, I’m convinced it’s the machine’s fault and that ticket buyers are not paying attention. To those in the know, am I correct? Is this all part of a psychology experiment because we’re so disconnected as a society that you’re forcing us to crash into each other just so we feel something?
• How often do customers go to the kiosk as opposed to walking up to a cashier to buy their tickets? Do cashiers feel like they’re being slowly replaced and dying existentially or are they happy there’s less work for them to do? They should feel the former. If I were a cashier, I would sabotage the kiosks with glue. Technology doesn’t plan for glue.

• Why is there still a pedestal to tear tickets if no one is going to stand there to tear tickets? I’ve had times where no one is there and I just walk in (having bought a ticket at the kiosk already) and then these lazy bastards expect me to walk over to them at one of the box offices so they can tear the ticket stub. One time I didn’t want to do that and I made the guy chase me down, because fuck him. Also, why do theaters sell tickets at the concession stand when there are enough people working to be at concessions and the empty box office? I’m guessing it has to do with efficiencies but whatever…shit looks cheap. Why don’t you just pull up chairs and show me the movie at the concession stand too if you’re so proud of it?

• Have theaters noticed a change since MoviePass became more mainstream? Are a lot more people going to movies? How do theater employees view MoviePass members? Do they think we’re losers? More or less of a loser than an AMC Stubs or Regal Crown Club member? If they think we are losers, do they know that they’re no better than us?
• I use my MoviePass and AMC Stubs card together so I rack up AMC points even when I don’t technically buy a ticket (because instead I pay the MoviePass subscription fee). The points I bank allow me to get free concessions eventually. Is it morally bankrupt to do this? Will I one day be audited? Or am I a genius like when Adam Sandler figured out that Healthy Choice loophole in Punch Drunk Love? Can I eventually own AMC if I gather enough points?

• Do people who work at second-run theaters think of themselves as second-run people? Are they like the minor leagues in baseball, where you have to work your way up to a first-run theater (aka “the show”)? Or like a nursing home where past first-run theater employees go to fade away? Is there a rivalry between the two types of theaters? E.G. Do second-run theater employees say first-run theater employees are elitist motherfuckers? Can a first-run theater person date a second-run theater person or is that taboo?

• Does anyone like D-Box and 4DX? What do theater employees (in theaters who have them) think of these types of experiences? Do they see the customers who try them for the first-time enjoying it or being disappointed by the experience? Now that we’re down this path, where does it end? Like, can I one day go inside the chair and become 4DX but it now is 5DX with the extra D being the chair now has my soul?

• How aware are theater employees of customers theater-hopping or “jumping the rope” (i.e. paying for one movie and seeing more than one)? If you work in a theater, have you ever stopped someone from doing it? What is the company policy for catching someone do that? I bet if you confronted someone about it, they would yell first and then cry because you’re shaming them. What is the line between adhering to the social contract that keeps us from becoming animals and pointing out to the transgressor that they are a bad person, thus possibly ruining their entire life?

• If you work in a theater, do customers tell you they like the recliners and reserved seating or do they prefer it the way things used to be? Are most of the people who complain older? Do these changes primarily benefit people who want to treat a movie theater like a living room and show up even later after a movie’s start time because anarchy? (Whispers into hands) “Yes.”
• Do most theaters enforce the R-rating policy? It seems like they don’t. When under 17s are shut down from seeing R-rated movies, do they usually take it in stride and see something else or get pissed and yell at the cashier? When you see a group of teens get dropped off by a mom and they don’t get in because of you, do you get a weird enjoyment from it because power?

What moviegoing mysteries would you like to solve?

21 comments:

  1. 2. I think the seating chart picks what it thinks the "best" possible seat is regardless of where others are seated.

    3. When I worked at Hot Topic back in the day, we got w new kiosks where customers would order stuff online. this led to a huge hassle because mostly it was parents ordering stuff for their kids with free shipping and they couldn't figure out how to work it. It didn't make me feel obsolete because "ringing up" was only 1/8th of my job, but having to walk them through the steps online when there was a million other things to do was awful, so we just unplugged them most of the time. I say this because I know theater workers have to stop and help people with questions at these "self serve" stations all the time.

    4. i think its the business model strategy that says customers are more likely to buy popcorn, drinks and snacks if theyre already in line - but im different, so i dunno. Like, i want my transactions separate so i can trick myself. For example, if my movie ticket is $10, no problem. If my snacks total $12, no problem. But I may not buy snacks if they grand total in one transaction is $22, I may only opt for a ticket bc $22 sounds bad.

    7. They CAN date, but since they must not be seen at the opposite theater of which they work, they must do dinner and movie date night out of town.

    -When I have a three/four movie day, how much am I judged by the cashier?

    -Question: do you like the self-buttering station for popcorn? How about the freestyle machine and the extra line it causes? (this is potentially up to 4 lines one has to stand in: tickets, snacks, freestyle, stub tear) -- I like the freestyle machines bc i like fruity drinks.

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    1. The Coke Freestyle machine is among the best of movie theater innovations because nowhere else can I get Cherry Vanilla Mr. Pibb. As for the self-buttering station, it's fine, I'm more of a flavored salt guy if they have it.

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  2. I also rack up points while using MoviePass for free stuff. It's awesome and I do not feel the least bit bad about it. ;)

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    1. Same. Since subscribing to MoviePass, I think I have enough Regal points to become a franchise owner of my local theater. I always go to the kiosk now because I don’t want the employees judging me for the amount of movies I see with this thing.

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    2. I must be crazy because I didn't know Regal did a rewards system. I don't go there a ton, but I'll have to get involved in that anyway. I go to B&B a lot and have earned a lot of free concessions there.

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  3. The abandonment of the lobby is because corporations don't want to spend money on employees. So the non-management employees will go home once they are done cleaning. The management will be in offices counting the money and doing inventory of the 50cent cups they charge 6 dollars for. Or they are done and are playing shuffleboard with trailer pucks in the projector room. (Or at least that's what we did in 2008)

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    1. "Trailer Puck Shuffleboard" should be a band name.

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    2. Or at least a 23 minute psychedelic rock song

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  4. Answers to the best of my ability:

    1. Box Office Cashiers and Ushers aren't needed after the doors are locked so they typically go home. Concessions people leave after they're done cleaning the equipment. That typically leaves a manager and maybe one or two other people at the end of the night who are probably doing some paperwork in the office or shutting down whatever they need to shut down.

    2. It's hard to know what these peoples' motives are. My pet theory is that they're lonely people who are hoping to socialize (or sit next to a woman), but there's no easy way to check into this.

    3. I haven't worked at a place with a kiosk, but from experience there are a lot of people who fear technology. With Credit Card chip readers for instance, 9 out of 10 customers put their cards in the reader before the reader gives them the go ahead, and they they have to be told by the cashier to remove the card and reinsert it. At a kiosk where there is nobody to direct them it just takes one person who can't follow instructions to create a huge line. Many of us have probably seen this in action at Safeway self checkout lines.

    4. This is something that varies from theater to theater and is largely a result of how each manager prioritizes payroll. In regards to the podium itself they might still use it during busy times when they have the staff for it.

    5. I think there are stats out there for MoviePass attendance and I'd find it hard to argue that there aren't more people going to the movies. I also think a lot of people question how sustainable the business model is since MoviePass is basically giving money away, and what happens to the industry if/when MP crashes and burns. Aside from that, the only thing most theater employees generally care about is that you know how to check in on the app first. First-time users who don't know how it works can take up a lot of time.

    6. Work the system I guess, although AMC and MoviePass are publicly at odds. I don't work for AMC though so I can't speak for their folks (note: I also don't speak in any official capacity for any other theater either).

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    1. 7. I don't know the state of 2nd run movie houses. To me they made sense when we were passing actual film prints around but I'm not sure what the business model is now. Likewise, I have no idea what the customers are like are they people who just love seeing movies and don't care if they're not the latest and most hyped? I think I might romanticize 2nd run theaters a bit, but I don't know the reality.

      8. People seem to like D-box. Personally I only enjoy it for Fast & Furious movies.

      9. Depends on theater size, staffing levels, etc..., but of course people know it's going on. Especially when no tickets have been sold to a show and there are five or six people in the auditorium. I've had people complain to my boss at the time for being shamed for being called out on it.

      10. It's really mixed. Generally I get a lot of older people complaining about recliners and reserved seating due to a nearby theater that converted but I've also lately had a run of people really liking it also. Voice your opinions through the company website of your choice. I can't promise it will do anything but in my experience companies are looking at that feedback.

      11. I can't speak to what most theaters do, but I think there is an importance placed on the R-rated policy. Some people, especially younger ones for whom this might be their first job are a little less comfortable asking for ID. Some older people might ask for ID from people in their mid-to-late 20's. Some parents don't realize they need to watch the R-rated movie with their kids and not just buy the tickets. Some do realize it and will leave and try to get a refund shortly after the movie starts. Some kids obviously try to theater hop. Some use online ticket purchasing and kiosks to try to get around people checking. I don't know that anyone gets a sense of power from denying people, but given how disruptive groups of teens typically are in R-rated movies there's usually a Minority Report sense of preventing the problem they were going to cause.

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    2. lol Your answer to #2 creeps me out so much.

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    3. Adam isn't the only person I've heard talk about this, and anytime I've heard one of these stories I don't know that I've ever heard "and then some woman just came and sat down next to me". Maybe Adam can shed some light on the types of people who have gotten seats next to him, but the stories I've heard tend to involve a particular type and a couple occasions at my previous theater required me dealing with some people being creeps.

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    4. There's no pattern. Sometimes it's a loner and sometimes it's a group of teenagers.

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    5. Groups of teens I can somewhat understand because sometimes they don't coordinate what seats they're going to pick and have to shout to each other across multiple box office lines when they get to the register.

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  5. Surely the machine just puts people together by default because it's easier to sell groups of seats than single ones sprinkled all over the place? That's what I've always assumed, anyway.

    In Finland, reserved seating is the standard and has been at least since I started going to the movies. Only in some smaller indie theaters and festival settings can you sit wherever you want.

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    1. I'm not sure if the software is the same across all theaters but from what I've seen there is a setting for the seat choice to default to what the system considers the best available, and there's also a setting for busier times that will prevent you from leaving a one seat gap between you and the next person.

      That accounts for some of the instances, but not the ones where you're in a mostly empty auditorium and aren't sitting in the direct center.

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  6. Question: I saw a guy at a buttering station stick a drinking straw into the butter nozzle and then down into the middle of his popcorn for what I have to assume was the most perfectly distributed butter popcorn in movie theatre history - should this man be institutionalized for thinking too hard about popcorn or memorialized with some sort of statue? Also anyone have any good and/or embarrassing theatre food rituals or seen anyone cross some sort of line with theirs?

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    1. Next time they're aren't many people around on a late night, early morning viewing, I'm totally doing this.

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    2. I bet that guy wraps birthday presents like Liam Neeson in Taken.

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    3. I've done this on a Saturday evening at the AMC in Northbrook. I have no shame, especially when it comes to butter on my popcorn. I don't want to enjoy that buttery goodness just during the trailers! The joy of hitting that lower layer of butter mid movie is intoxicating. It's like hitting the sour cream pocket in a really good burrito.

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