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Topic: How full do you sell your theatres?

James R. Hammonds, Jr
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 931
From: Houston, TX, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 09-02-2001 12:13 PM

I was wondering how full you let your theatres get before you consider them sold out.
Do you sell every seat in the house, or do youleave a certain percentage open to make it easier for those last few people to find seats and to account for people who manage to sneak in?

My theatre just recently started selling out every seat which makes it diffucult to help people who arrive late find seats.
In the past, we cut out a few seats from the seat count when it was entered in the computer.
What do you guys do?

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Jim Ziegler
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 753
From: West Hollywood, CA
Registered: Jul 99

posted 09-02-2001 01:09 PM

It really depends on a number of factors, like:

The movie, how much time until showtime, anticipated number of sneak ins, multiple prints, etc..

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Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 09-02-2001 01:19 PM

Used to have a mangager at one theater I worked at that we nicknamed the seat natzi....he would make sure that every seat had someone in it. that is one way we found out that the seat count of a couple of auditoriums did not include two seats. the computer had 236 but the house contained 238 seats. we had a negative 2 seats on the computer screen.

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Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 09-02-2001 02:10 PM

We always leave a buffer of 20 seats, sometimes 30 if its a kids movie (2 year olds get in free so don't count against the seating capacity).

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Adam Martin
I'm not even gonna point out the irony.

Posts: 3686
From: Dallas, TX
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 09-02-2001 02:37 PM

When I've set up box office computers, I've always set it up as "low seats" = 80% capacity and "sold out" = 90% capacity. Then, depending on a multitude of factors like time till show start, etc., the manager's code will allow negative seats to fill it up if necessary.

One company I worked for refused to use anything but hard tickets for passes, so the computer never knew about the passes until the end of the night. I swear they were up to something with that one.

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Andy Muirhead
Master Film Handler

Posts: 323
From: Galashiels, Scotland
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 09-02-2001 06:49 PM

We have a stop limit, usually 10 percent of capacity. Once that limit is reached, the box office then have to phone up to a senior member of staff and notify them. We don't want to have to split up familys, our groups of friends, into single seats. Once we know the situation, we become actively involved in going into the screen and 'creating' spaces for them. We don't actually have allocated seating - you sit where you want - so its relatively easy to create spaces by moving people. We rarely totally sell out a show. our No1 has 356 seats, we consider it a sell out at just over 310, maybe 320. There's seats in there nobody should pay for, like front row hard left, hard right etc.

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Bill Enos
Film God

Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 09-02-2001 11:41 PM

We have 916 seats on the main floor, the balcony is opened at 600 and sales are cut off at 1200, at around 900 tbey are warned that seating will be tight. Refunds are given if satisfactory seats can't be found before the feature starts. Capacity is 1392, there are 476 is the bacony.

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Aldo Baez
Master Film Handler

Posts: 266
From: USA
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 09-03-2001 03:01 AM

Wow, we don't give refunds if people don't like their seats. Only exchanges. We have signs everywhere to come early for big movies, on the phone, paper, box office, we also inform them that the seating will be seperate and towards the front before they buy their tickets. No refunds are ever given. Sometimes some customers get so bad that we have to call the police, but most people realize that we aren't going to let them have their way, and if they want good seats, they come early, it's not our fault you decide to come 10 minutes after the movie starts on the opening weekend of Pearl Harbor, you sit in the very front seperately thank you very much. And no, buying your tickets yesterday does not mean you can come 10 minutes after showtime and still have a good seat.

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JC Cowles
Film Handler

Posts: 77
From: St. Paul, MN
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 09-03-2001 05:39 AM

Does anyone's theater here actually SEAT people? Not necissarily buy tickets for a certain seat, but force people to sit in a designated way. I know the Omni/Imax theater near me requires patrons start seating in the middle and are not allowed to have empty chairs between themselves.

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Mike Spaeth
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1129
From: Marietta, GA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 09-04-2001 12:12 AM

Seat Nazi? How bout good businessman. I sell em to ZERO. I also seat the auditorium and make sure I help every last customer find a seat. They are informed at the box office when it is single seating only.

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Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 09-04-2001 01:57 AM

quote:
Seat Nazi? How bout good businessman. I sell em to ZERO. I also seat the auditorium and make sure I help every last customer find a seat. They are informed at the box office when it is single seating only.

How do you time this just right? It seems even with walkie talkies, there would still be a few customers waiting in the concession line who had not been informed of the single seating status. And what about people who sneak in? Not nescessarily getting by with no ticket, but buying a ticket to a different movie and auditorium hoping. Do you post ushers on both doors of the theatres that are going to sell out to check tickets? Not calling you a liar, just curious how you manage this.

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Joshua Voorhies
Film Handler

Posts: 45
From: Overland Park, KS
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-04-2001 03:53 AM

Here's the situation my theatre is faced with: we'll get multiple prints of a big movie. When customers see that the theatre for their showtime is running low on seats (we'll have seaters in there), they'll try to go into the next showtime. If we let them in, the people who arrived early for the later showtime can't find ANY seats, since box office shows all those seats available and continues to sell.
We make people exchange their tickets if they want a later showtime for the same movie, since there are still seats in their original showtime. Maybe not the seats they want, but we shouldn't penalize everyone at the later movie because the people at the earlier movie didn't want to show up ahead of time.
Then they act like we're being assholes because we'll only let them into the theatre for which they have the proper ticket.

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Paul Konen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 981
From: Frisco, TX. (North of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-04-2001 09:30 AM

Generally around 90%.

When it gets to about 75-80% we notify the appropriate usher manager to get someone into the theatre to help seat people. Hopefully, this person will actually do something other than stand at the side at parade rest until start time.

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Wes Hughes
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 175
From: Raleigh, NC, USA
Registered: Aug 2001

posted 09-04-2001 03:46 PM

I only have 5 BIG screens, so this is only sometimes (not much this year!) a problem. Every customer is informed when there are about 50-75 seats left that seating is limited and NO REFUNDS will be given for people that have to split up, sit in the front, etc.

DON'T GIVE PEOPLE REFUNDS IF THEY WERE WARNED OF A LOW SEAT STATUS ! That just causes people to think they will get their ass kissed everywhere.

Also, if we have a big feature, like Pearl Harbor or Planet of the Apes, I will force seat people. If they don't comply they are excused with refunds. Sometimes, if I am in an adventurous mood, I will tell people who were refused admission (due to 0 seats) that they can wait for about 10 minutes to see if any seats "open up". If I see an unoccupied seats I will approach empty seats and ask the neighboring people if anyone is sitting there...if not, SOLD to the people waiting outside. If someone comes later than 10 minutes on a big film, even with a legitimate ticket, they are welcome to get a ticket to a later film, get a PASS, or maybe come to the theatre on time next trip.

Every theatre will have to handle this differently though. I am not bound by big corporate customer service bullcrap like a lot of people are. We WANT bad customers to go to the other theatres, and send them off there often. Our customers know this and expect this when they come to our theatres. I only have 5 screens though. I cannot imagine even attempting to worry about selling to 0 if I had 10 or more screens to worry about.

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Paul Turner
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 115
From: Corvallis, OR, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-04-2001 05:27 PM

We only have 116 seats. We sell to 99 (since that's what the fire dept has as our capacity). You want to be careful about "Over Selling." If there's ever a claim against the theater and you have sold beyond capacity, both your insurance company and the litigious swine's lawyer might have a field day: "There were people standing in the aisles because there were no seats. That's when that rogue pop lid leapt from the floor and cut me about my face and hands . . . ."

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