From: a0s5108@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Neal and Mara Priestly)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: PEEVES at MOVIE THEATERS !
Date: 11 Jan 1993 07:52:52 -0500
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NNTP-Posting-Host: titan.ucc.umass.edu


I promise to be on better behaviour this time...I'm quitting smoking, so I have
a small tendency to over-react when people hammer my peeves...:)

In article <1993Jan8.003014.24469@Princeton.EDU> spencer@phoenix.princeton.edu (S. Spencer Sun) writes:
>In article <1993Jan7.192016.6060@brtph560.bnr.ca>, trice@brtph330 (Tony Rice P885) writes:
>>
>>* usher's who tell you to put your feet down
>
>I think the company line is that it causes wear and tear on the seats.
>Uh...
>

I can't speak to the situation at Spencer's theatre, but at mine it isn't
'wear and tear' it's 'you're gonna break my seats!'  Most of the seats in
my theatre are 20 years old come October.  The others have been broken by
people with thier feet up.  Seat breakage is most likely to happen at the
bottom of the theatre where the Coke that people spilled has had the chance
to eat the studs that anchor the seat to the floor.  And if I tell them
to get thier feet down I have to tell you to take your feet down.  Either
that or I have to spend five minutes explaining the differing repercussions
of feet up positionally in the theatre.  Which will piss everyone off.
And will waste my time, which I am paid for.  By the patrons of course.
Either that or you can indirectly pay for the very expensive seat parts
and the time consuming and expensive seat replacement.

>>* that sticky floor
>
>Caused by clumsy patrons from the previous shows, combined with ushers
>who don't mop when they ought to while cleaning the theater, although
>frequently there is not enough time between shows to do a great job
>cleaning the theater.  When we had Terminator 2, the geniuses higher up
>who scheduled it... 

[deletia]

We could solve the sticky floor problem with a little more time.  BUT
as mentioned above, by someone who works for a different chain, the 
theatre manager does not always (ever) have the final say in scheduling.
The person who built AMC from two locations and four screens in downtown
KC to the second largest exhibitor has set for us guidelines.  They would
work very well if no one released a film longer than 1 hour 40 minutes.
As it is, it pushes the late movies later and leave no time to clean the
theatres the right way nor to get everyone through the concession stand
as quickly as they would like.  (I have always thought that we should 
start to let people in as soon as there is somewhere to put them.  It 
lessens the congestion in our very small lobby and makes people feel 
less rushed and claustrophobic.)  

One thing that could help this a great deal rests with the customer.

TAKE YOUR TRASH WITH YOU.  Most of the spills I have seen take place as
people leave the theatre past someone else's half full and abandoned 
large drink.  It gets punted in the dark and I have the choice of 
mopping the 26 rows it spilled down through or letting people in before
starting the movie.

I don't know about anyone else's theatres, but at the open of every 
business day our floors are spotless.  If you didn't mind a little 
maintenance wax you could eat off them.  And then we just do the best
we can with the time we have.  Six people can do a lot of cleaning,
but if you should already be seating someone has to decide when to 
call it close enough.....or be lynched by the people in line.

>>* $20 popcorn
>>
>>* $30 small sodas
>
>These are a side effect of the way admissions works at movie theaters.
>Most of what movie theaters make on admission goes right back to the
>movie folks.  Thus, theaters are forced to make all their profits on
>concessions.  This explains the outrageous concessions prices.
>

Well there's more to it than that.  The short form answer is that you are
also paying the pretty packaging costs, and the labor costs and the rent
costs for the stand, and the electricity for that three phase DC Popcorn
popper (it draws more juice than my HOUSE can supply),  etc, etc, etc.

Most of these costs are reflected as coming out of the box office bottom
line (because it makes the paperwork easier) and therefore make the 
stand look more profitable than it really is.

(This last was my OBNit.)

-Neal
No, I don't really have the authority to speak for them.  Lets keep it
our little secret :)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies