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Topic: Reserved seating - good or bad?

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-07-2011 08:23 PM

quote: Emma Tomiak
A customer can ONLY purchase a reserved seat if they also buy a $12 food and drink voucher (basically you've paid for food whether you want it or not).

Emma - you might want to tell your bosses to take a look at the new Warner Bros contract. It has a "clause" whereby if you sell somebody a food voucher at the door, rather than at the concession stand, then they get their percentage of that money. (It might not hold water at your place since people have the option to "opt out" of the voucher by not buying a reserved seat.)

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David E. Nedrow
Master Film Handler

Posts: 368
From: Columbus, OH, USA
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 03-07-2011 08:28 PM

quote: Emma T
One of the theatres I work for has reserved seating. A customer can ONLY purchase a reserved seat if they also buy a $12 food and drink voucher (basically you've paid for food whether you want it or not). It doesn't make sense for someone who just intends to watch the movie and buy a Coke to get a reserved seat here.

That's not a bad idea.

I think the problem with reserved seating, particularly for an opening, is that your even more likely to end up with dozens of single seats that won't be sold. When someone is already there, they may as well sit separately. I can't imagine anyone buying reserved tickets with them in one seat, and their spouse 8 rows away. And one way for a person buying reserved seats to virtually ensure an empty seat next to them, is to just leave one empty between you and the next sold seats when you pick your seats.

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Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 03-07-2011 08:37 PM

For cinema events, we always do general admission because it just seems that most people are just culturally used to that in a cinema, and to do reserved seating would likely make them unhappy. I know personally I hate going to the movies and having assigned seating because I'm always early enough to choose the sweet spot anyhow.

We do utilize assigned seating for the Met Opera HD broadcasts because that crowd is much pickier about where they are for those performances.

AJG

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-07-2011 11:06 PM

If they wanna be picky, then maybe they should go see those operas at the Met! [Razz]

Don't get me started, Aaron! I'm in no mood [Big Grin]

Kidding aside (wait - was I kidding?) if reserved seats are not claimed at show time, then the reserved status should become void at that point.

The extreme side seats of the very front row should be reserved for latecomers who **had** reserved seats.

Even on Broadway -- where admission is easily $100 per seat -- latecomers know their place.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 03-08-2011 12:31 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
Emma - you might want to tell your bosses to take a look at the new Warner Bros contract. It has a "clause" whereby if you sell somebody a food voucher at the door, rather than at the concession stand, then they get their percentage of that money. (It might not hold water at your place since people have the option to "opt out" of the voucher by not buying a reserved seat.)

The theater she's referring to doesn't have a concession stand. It's a dinner theater chain. So the contract might be drawn up differently for them.

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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.

Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004

posted 03-08-2011 01:33 PM

The one thing I like about reserved seating is that I can look in advance on Megaplex Theatres' website and preview how well any given show is selling before venturing out, thus avoiding heavily sold shows.

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Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 03-08-2011 03:05 PM

quote:
If they wanna be picky, then maybe they should go see those operas at the Met!

But they always buy food from us...which I really really appreciate. [thumbsup]

Actually, the biggest reason for reserved seating for the Met is because they typically get close to capacity, and the crowd has many special needs. Getting that information prior to the show with reserved seating is priceless.

AJG

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Michael Brown
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1522
From: Bradford, England
Registered: May 2001

posted 03-08-2011 04:26 PM

I've thought about this for a while and I think I'm personally not in favour of assigned seating and that’s coming from someone who can get very pedantic about where I want to sit. Generally in the UK most cinemas don’t have assigned seating however recently one of the countries largest chains has started rolling out assigned seating across their sites (this has why I’ve had to start formulating my opinion on assigned seating). One of the issues I’ve has at a few of these sites is the way the box office staff deal with this. When you buy your ticket they simply ask you if you want to sit front, middle or back. I can understand why they do this, it would get very time consuming to have each customer pick out their seats on a map. (I’m just imagining a busy Friday night when your have long lines at the box office). The problem with this front, middle, back situation is that it still can be very much pot luck on which seat you get given. I like sitting about 4 or 5 rows from the front, but do we classify this is the front or the middle? It could vary on the size of the auditorium. I even know of a small auditorium at one site where row 5 is the back row. The problem is that the customer’s definition could be different to the person serving them on box office. Plus how do you avoid getting bad seats one far side of the auditorium?

Which is why is use an automated machine at these sites because I can pick my own seat. But that is only good for an auditorium I have been in before so I know where I want to sit. If it was the very first time I was going to see a film I’d want to be able to go into the auditorium and pick my seat when I can take into factors such as the size of the screen, position of the aisles, audio sweet spot (as already mentioned). I wouldn’t want to go into an auditorium that I’d never been in before with my seat already assigned, because you're back to pot luck. (In face the very few times this has happened to me before I've either ended up moving or having to put up with a seat I didn't really like)

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Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 03-08-2011 04:38 PM

You have no idea what "select you own seat" can do to a line at the box office during a walk up. This is why once it is an hour before the show, we do best seating unless they really make a fuss. I've also trained the staff to know which seats are best for a given performance. For instance, a few rows back for a jazz vocalist may be awesome, but not so good for a brass band.

Our software can also be programmed to have multiple best seating choices for different types of events so we can choose a template depending on the event.

AJG

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004

posted 08-21-2014 01:04 PM

It has been 1261 days since the last post.

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 08-21-2014 01:04 PM

quote: Sam Graham
The one thing I like about reserved seating is that I can look in advance on Megaplex Theatres' website and preview how well any given show is selling before venturing out, thus avoiding heavily sold shows.

I've been poking around the Megaplex website and I was surpised at that fact that I could go through all of their shows starting and see how many people were there watching movies. Like - the one dude that was catching the first matinee of "The Expendables 3". I find this sorta odd.

What are your thoughts about this?

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William Kucharski
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 244
From: Louisville, Colorado, United States of America
Registered: Oct 2012

posted 08-21-2014 07:39 PM

I think reserved seating is awesome - no more having to get to the theatre an hour early for a movie, and I can tell when purchasing how full the theatre is and choose a more sparsely attended show, as well as be sure I'll get the seats I want weeks in advance.

If I have a choice, I always choose a house with reserved seating now.

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David Buckley
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 525
From: Oxford, N. Canterbury, New Zealand
Registered: Aug 2004

posted 08-21-2014 08:31 PM

All the multiplexes round our way are reserved seating, and have been since well before this thread started. Pick your seat on the web before venturing out.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 08-21-2014 10:02 PM

Reserve seating sucks when they tell you where to sit when you enter the theatre like they do at Condolidated's Ward 16 in their TITAN XC house. If they asked me where I would like to sit by showing me a sitting diagram of the auditorium when I buy my ticket or when I enter the theatre, I would have no problem with that but when they tell me where to sit when they take my ticket without allowing me to choose my seat is not right. Worst of all, they made me sit right next to someone in a almost empty theatre off to the side and told me I could move if I did not like the seat after the show had started, the last time I was there a couple of months ago. In fact, I posted a thread here at FT titled RESERVED SEATING SUCKS or something like that.about this incident. Even though they were the only theatre in Honolulu with Dolby Atmos, I never went back and saw all my movies at either Regal's Dole Cannery 18 or at their Pearl Highland 16. "Patience is virtue" has turned out to be true because the Dole Cannery now has Dolby Atmos as of last week in their RPX auditorium and the seats are not reserved.

-Claude

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 08-22-2014 12:04 AM

Our location http://www.thevillageatmeridian.com/shop/detail/19 uses the reserved seating format, including D-Box and up in the 21+VIP section.

This location is the first in the area to offer reserved seating. At first, it wasn't welcome too well, but in a few months, the majority of the patrons love this concept.

One week we tried open seating as an experiment and did we have the complaints that groups couldn't sit together, or ones arrive late couldn't have the best seating in the house.

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