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> In the old days you would have to show up at the theater, stand in line to buy tickets (with no way to know how many had already been sold), then go into the
by saurik 3y ago
> In the old days you would have to show up at the theater, stand in line to buy tickets (with no way to know how many had already been sold), then go into the theater and hope there were still decent seats left. It would stink to go back to that situation.
Don't most theater still work this way? The ability to buy specific seats at a theater isn't an Internet thing.
- yard2010 3y agoIt is astounding to me that in the US the seats at the movie theater are not tied to the tickets. I learned it a few weeks ago watching that Seinfeld episode and I still can't understand why it works like this..
- irrational 3y agoThey are today (at least all the theaters where I live). But in the 1980s and 1990s? No.
- Izkata 3y agoOne theater near me trialed something like that for a while, but they stopped using it very quickly. I can only assume it was confusing people and they lost sales; other than that one instance, I didn't even know this was a thing for movie theaters. They do keep track of number of seats and won't over-sell, but it's not normal to have assigned seating.
- tohnjitor 3y agoI've been to a theater with assigned seating. It was great but not sure if they kept the system after selling to a competing company.
- bigDinosaur 3y agoHow does assigned seating confuse people?
- californical 3y agoSomeone is unaware/doesn’t care, so they sit in your seat before you get there. You arrive and ask them to move, they apologize and say “oh but my friend is here, I see some empty seats up there you could take instead!” So you go sit in those empty seats, hesitantly. Then someone comes in and tells you that you’re in their seat. You try to explain the situation but… Etc etc etc. This has happened to me multiple times on long-distance transit before (bus/train), it ends up being chaos if just a few people don’t perfectly follow the assignments.
- JB_Dev 3y agoI have been in this situation too and tried to do the ‘polite’ thing and sit somewhere else. Then of course another group comes along and I am in their spot. So now when this happens I refuse the suggestion and ask whoever is in my seat to move to their original seat. It’s the only proper solution to this problem.
- Jill_the_Pill 3y agoMany people arrive late, while the theater is already dark. It is easier to grab an empty seat than fumble around trying to identify the right number. Some theaters used to have ushers with flashlights, but they wouldn’t want to pay them now.
- hutzlibu 3y agoWell, the solution is simply, don't be late and don't disturb all the others. I also am quite late in many situations, but in a theather you just go, if you can manage to be seated, before it gets dark. Everything else is just rude.
- Jill_the_Pill 3y agoWell, it's a bit rude how much of our time they waste with previews and ads. If coming on time meant just seeing the movie, I would agree with you. For live plays, with assigned seats and no captive marketing, people do come on time generally.