Blocking off seats

[Frank Cox]

People are adults and they can count up to three..
You think?

I tell people that if you can count up to four, then you can be a projectionist!

(Of course, nobody understands that joke around here, but you guys will.

[Mike Blakesley]

I was going to block off every other row, but then I sort of took Mark's cue and just let people distance themselves. Our rows are already about 5 feet apart (I know that's cheating by a foot, but people aren't facing each other either) and I've just made sure they're leaving at least 2 seats between parties and let it go at that. People tend to try to find a row nobody's sitting in, anyway, if they can.

[Frank Cox]

We have an official regulation from the health department that says you have to block off every other row and the first seat on each side of any aisle. So I have to physically block those seats and haven't got the choice to just let people sort it out for themselves.

[Martin McCaffery]

People are adults and they can count up to three.. If they can find a place to set that is one row and three seats away from someone else, that is okay with me.

I'm not sitting too close to him! He's sitting to close to ME!

[Frank Cox]

I saw something the other day that said how times have changed. "Back off, get away from me!" used to be rude. Now it's a public service.

[Randy Stankey]

What about pallet strapping?

Like this: https://www.uline.com/Cls_09/Strapping

You could place one or two vertical bands over the back of the chair, around the seat and cinch it tight. If you used plastic/polyester straps and, maybe, some edge protectors to keep the chair edges from getting scuffed up, you would have a neat looking package that is difficult to remove without a cutter. When it's time to remove them, a side cutter or utility knife could be used to remove them without a lot of trouble.

You can print out some classy looking signs, slip them into plastic sheet protectors and put them on the blocked-off rows so that people know what's going on.

Maybe you can create a PSA video, make it into a DCP and make it part of your preshow ad playlist.

I agree that, by this time, most people should understand what's going on and should naturally keep their distance from others but, as we have all seen, many people are just resistant to the idea. I say to those people, "We're going to have to deal with this virus for at least a year so you had better get used to it!"

[Mike Blakesley]

The biggest problem with blocking individual seats is different sized groups. If we block every other row, that reduces us to about 70 seats. Within rows, if we were to go to two-on/two-off seating, we'd then only have about 35 sellable seats. By letting people sit where they want, and limiting the crowd size to 75% (which is about 110 for us), and going around asking people who are "too close" to move a bit, we've been OK so far.

We are going to ramp up our efforts in this a little more now though because we've finally got some cases in this county. Still in single digits and only a couple here in town, but it is definitely here.

But, the way things are going, we're probably not going to get any new movies until about next April anyway (that is, if there is still an industry then), so we won't exactly have to worry about sellouts.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The biggest problem with blocking individual seats is different sized groups. If we block every other row, that reduces us to about 70 seats. Within rows, if we were to go to two-on/two-off seating, we'd then only have about 35 sellable seats. By letting people sit where they want, and limiting the crowd size to 75% (which is about 110 for us), and going around asking people who are "too close" to move a bit, we've been OK so far.

I'm not sure if it's possible for you to do so staff wise, but you could have an usher assign seats to groups of people on-the-fly and keep social distancing in mind.

We've recently been asked to look at some on-line seat reservation software, in order to make it "smart" as to automatically block all seats around a group of reserved seats. Unfortunately, that software is quite a mess...

[Randy Stankey]

I'm not sure if it's possible for you to do so staff wise, but you could have an usher assign seats to groups of people on-the-fly and keep social distancing in mind.

Oh? Where are you going to find an usher that can help a customer find a seat?
OMG! You act like ushers are supposed to do things like that!

[Marcel Birgelen]

Oh? Where are you going to find an usher that can help a customer find a seat?
OMG! You act like ushers are supposed to do things like that!

I guess the average movie-going public will be surprised by meeting an actual usher, probably not even knowing what the function of that mythical creature will be. Because those are almost as extinct as dinosaurs, projectionists and working Mac Tonight animatronics...

[Randy Stankey]

Finding an usher who knows how to perform crowd control in a stadium style theater would probably be even worse.

[Frank Cox]

whips-1.jpg

[Carsten Kurz]

We bought a set of red and blue foam laser swords and cut them to our local regulation of 1.5 metres.
We're a single screen, and it's no problem for our staff to sneak into the auditorium every few minutes to check distancing. If you limit the number of admissions to a number that fit's your allowance, it's no big deal to let people find their personal comfort zone.

- Carsten

[Marcel Birgelen]

I think this is the first time I've heard about someone guarding social distancing using (fake plastic) laser swords. Now, wake me up when someone implements a way to do it with sharks with frickin' lasers attached to their heads.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

We got the word from the local health department that our 1,750 seat theatre can now allow 10 people for a show. The 2,200 sear theatre across the street is limited to 10 people maximum as well.

Guess we are not going to do much yet.