Now, if there's a private showing or a birthday party, etc. I pretty often end up giving a tour too. Mostly it's Girl Scout troops or schools. (It's kind of a fashionable thing for the Scouts) I like doing it. Plus it also gives people a better idea of what goes on upstairs. A lot less people get bent out of shape about minor problems if they've seen the booth and understand that there's not a 'guy' standing by every projector like in the 'old days'.

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Since this is my first post in this forum, I guess it's polite to at least say hello before replying to the subject at hand. I'm very pleased to meet you all.

I do give booth tours a couple of times a year, most of them more or less involuntary. Most of these tours happen when filmmakers visit the booth during the annual Göteborg Film Festival, to tell me that their films should play louder. (This is usually right before the patrons find their way out to complain about the volume...) The filmmakers almost invariably want to have a closer look at the equipment while they're visiting, and I usually comply.

There is a festival coming up at my theatre, the Draken in Göteborg, Sweden, at the end of this month so I will get my share of visits, I'm sure.

It does happen that a patron visits, too, out of interest or to complain about something. A nice middle-aged lady visited me during a film festival a couple of years ago, to ask me to please lift the screen a few feet higher before the next show. She admitted that she was a bit on the short side, but maintained that the screen was my responsibility. She also claimed that our "subtitling machine" didn't work because the last film she had watched was subtitled in French.

The second I heard the door close below the stairs, I collapsed, laughing.

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That's where I got started in this gig. Someone was nice enough to show me the booth and satisfy my curious nature. I'm glad for that, and never forget it when a kid comes up and wants to see the projector!

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I used to run the movies on the bottom 2 platters for planned kiddie tours. Otherwise they would try and grab a platter deck to pull themselves up to get a peek!!! Using the lower 2 decks, they could see everything.

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Don't forget that in the late 60s and early 70s I too was a 'booth watcher' and i am merely returning the favor