From: eset08@castle.ed.ac.uk (J Strobridge)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Every picture and its story
Date: 27 Jan 93 20:35:26 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: Edinburgh University


We decided to go to the cinema the other night.   Late night 
showing of BladeRunner - the director's cut.   Good film I was 
told, well worth seeing, so we tried to buy some tickets.    
Not so easy - The cinema concerned is small, extremely comfortable, 
gives you a personal friendly service but has a wierd booking system.

Firstly you can't buy tickets until a certain hour on the day of the 
showing concerned - 2.00 p.m. I think in our case.    However you 
can phone and book ahead and they write your name on a list.    
It is not necessary to pay any money at this point but you do have 
to turn up half an hour before the film begins to pick up your 
tickets and pay for them.   If you do not then they sell them on to 
the first person to turn up and pay.

Ok - first I phoned up to add my name to a list that should already
have existed.   No, the name didn't exist, no, no-one had booked
anyone for the late night showing.   Did I want to make a booking?
Yes - for 5 please - for the 11.55pm showing.    No problem I
was assured - just be sure to turn up half an hour before the film
starts and collect them from the desk.

Well as things turned out 2 of us arrived at the door 5 mins later
than the half hour cut off point - the film was sold out and there
was a long queue.   Thankfully we saw two other members of our party
right up at the front of the queue - they had been waiting patiently
in line for the last 15 minutes (having arrived well before the cut
off time).   So we joined them and arrived at the desk.   Could we
have our tickets?   No chance.  They had long, long gone.

Apparently our two friends should have hassled their way to the desk
as soon as they arrived and queuejumped everybody else.   If they
had insisted on being served immediately then they'd have got the 
tickets.  But nobody had bothered to tell *us* that and by politely 
waiting in line we had missed them.

This was slightly irritating and we protested but ok - maybe we had
left it a bit last minute and maybe we should have realised that you
muscle in at the top of the queue rather than waiting but they might
have told us.

However nothing could be done so we booked up for the late
night showing the next night.    This time we arranged for someone to
pick up the tickets in plenty of time - but I'm a doubting sort of
person so at 10.00pm I phoned to check.   Had the tickets been
collected?     "Was this", I was asked "For the 9.00 p.m. showing?"   At
10.00p.m.????   Not that one I said patiently the 11.55 one.  No. they
hadn't been collected.   I flipped.   Rushed out of the house early -
got there by 11.00 - different person on the desk.   No, she had no
tickets set aside for me - she could only give me two out of what she
had left.   "But someone told me they hadn't been collected", I
protested.  Didn't she have a sheet she could refer to?   She suggested
that maybe someone had come to collect them earlier?    I asked if she 
could tell me this.  No, she couldn't.   The person who had been on duty
had gone home and (for some bizarre reason) appeared to have taken the 
booking list with him.  

Another friend turned up - he didn't have any tickets so we waited for
the rest.  And, sigh of relief, the others had the tickets!   Ok - we
thanked the desk for their concern and went on in.    Problem - we were
checked through the door and then they called us back.    Apparently
they had managed to give us tickets that were only valid for the early
evening showing.   The unfortunate problem being that since the
tickets themselves did not have a time printed on them we hadn't been
aware of this small fact.    And now - yes, guess what, they weren't
going to let us in.

I got annoyed.  I got very annoyed.  In fact we all did.   Curiously the
management were quite prepared, even happy to admit, that their booking
system was completely useless.   They seemed almost to take a pride in
it.   They did assure us that a whole new computer system was going to
be operational sometime in the next few months.   But meantime, yes, it
really didn't work very well at all at the moment.

I dunno.   Anyhow, we got out money back.   In fact we even got
complimentary tickets.    And we left vowing never to go there again.  
However, once outside I determined on one more attempt to defeat this
system.   This time we would EACH book separately and each pick up our
own tickets.    This way the group booking system couldn't possibly
fail.    So we booked for the *next* evening.

I turned up early.  I went to collect my ticket.    It wasn't there.  
I was calmly informed that someone had already been in to collect the
whole lot but no, they hadn't thought to make a note of who it was.

I didn't believe it - at least I believed it but couldn't believe it.  
So I bought another ticket - there and then.   Just to make absolutely
sure I was going to see this film - no matter what!   

And finally having covered myself on all possible angles I turned up for
the film at the third attempt and yes, it turned out that one of our
party had indeed, for various complicated reasons, picked up ALL the
tickets himself.    Sigh.

To be fair the cinema bought my 2nd ticket back - gladly probably since
there was another large crowd gathering outside the box office and I'd
already heard one lot of protests about something going wrong.

So if you are absolutely determined to see a film here and you keep
going back night after night, buy everything twice, check everything
you are given three times and confirm everything verbally with the desk 
then you will probably get in and have a wonderful time.    But it 
sure takes persistence.


jill
Newsgroups: alt.peeves