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Author
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Topic: Late-comers
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Sherry Legare
Film Handler
Posts: 12
From: Thornhill, ON, Canada
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 09-10-2001 10:00 AM
I was wondering what everyone's policies are on people who arrive late for a movie. We have a real problem with people coming 15 or 20 minutes into the show. As a patron, I actually walked out of a movie at our theatre one time because a group of teens arrived 10 minutes into the movie and were making a racket at the back of the theatre trying to decide where to sit, then were climbing all over in front of us trying to get into their seats. It was an important part of the movie, and by the time they were settled I had missed what was going on.After that, and several complaints from other patrons experiencing the same thing, we decided to implement a policy where nobody was allowed into the movie after the main feature had been running for 10 minutes. Situational exceptions are made, such as a person arriving late that was meeting people in the theatre. Unfortunately we don't have the manpower to have someone escorting late-comers into their movies and helping them find seats. By this time our ushers are busy doing other, more important, things.
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Richard C. Wolfe
Master Film Handler
Posts: 250
From: Northampton, PA, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 09-10-2001 09:58 PM
We seldom get people coming in that late, but as we have almost 600 seats it is not usually a problem to get a late comer seated.My problem is just the opposite. We get people that arrive a half hour before the end of the show and want to go right in and see the end, and then stay and see the beginning up to where they came in. My theatre is a single screen in a small town, and most of our patrons are well over age 40. Now you young people reading this may not be aware of this, but back when those patrons were young, it was not unusual for people to come and go at any time during a movie. The theatres ran continuous. They did not stop between shows to clean. Between the feature showings were the cartoon, trailers, and shorts as well as the news reel. Often the lights were brought up about 1/3 to 1/2 during those portions of the program, but film never left the screen. People came and went as they pleased, even throughout the feature. These people are not pleased when they have to wait until the end of the show to get in. Oh, how things have changed. Some for the better and some for the worse. Holding people out after 15 minutes until the next show is certainly one of those things for the better. I'm curious, if a partron wants to stay and see part of, or all of the show over again, do you let them? That was another practice that was the norm years ago. You could come in at noon and stay all day if you wanted to... watching the film and shorts up to five times. Some of the shorts I believe were made with the intent of clearing the house between shows... boy, were they ever long and boring! Maybe it was just to drive them to the concession stand?
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Sherry Legare
Film Handler
Posts: 12
From: Thornhill, ON, Canada
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 09-11-2001 05:39 PM
I completely disagree with Mike.The statement that "it happens so rarely that people want to come 20 minutes or later to a show" may be true for some, but it is not for us. It happens on a regular basis, especially during our midnight shows on Friday and Saturday. We are a discount theatre, so people don't mind missing half their movie when they are only paying $3.00. People often come in much later than 20 minutes in fact. It may be bad business to turn away people, but in my opinion it is worse business not to care about unnecessarily inconveniencing your patrons that arrived on time and are enjoying their movie. Those are your valued customers and those are the ones you want to return. As I said in my original post, we do make situational exceptions, but if a group of loud, rowdy teens shows up 20 minutes into a movie, I don't want them disturbing the 50 or 100 people that are already in the theatre. More than traffic or personal crisis, I think a large problem is that people have been brainwashed thanks to the larger chains to think theatres always run 20 minutes of commericals and crap before the show starts and many people want to miss that.
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). Those who frequent the place know they don't get a lot of crap before the show... and they've learned not to dawdle.
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