I think that guests do notice all the problems that can happen during a presentation, but find it is to much of a hassle to find someone and complain. Then if they do find someone they are just handed passes and feel that nothing will be done to correct the problem. Having any easy to fill out card with yes/no questions or perhaps multiple choice selections would be a great help.

Seems to me that every theatre, especially mega-plex's, should have a comment card and box prominently displayed near all the main exits. This way it isn't an inconvience to the guest to make the complaint (or compliment) and there is a written record of it so the right people get the message. If you find that you get more complaints during one persons shift you know that they aren't doing their job right and can be handled appropriately.

Seems like common sense, but I can't think of any theatre I have ever been to that has something even remote like this in place.
 

I consider my WWW site http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/ to be a good way of providing detailed feedback to everyone about my experiences in theatres. (Look at the theatre ratings table and the individual listings of showings for each). Carmike has looked at it, but I've never received any hits from the regalcinemas.com domain. I've only been contacted once by any theatre manager about the site. I could write a Perl program to fill in Regal's comment card on their WWW site for all of my Regal visits in the past short while, by reading my data and filling in the comments field based on it, but that would be mean.

The Art House cinema I worked at also had the comment card system, but most time we were never informed of any problems until the next day!.
 

As owners who are at the theatre every day, we hear the complaints first hand. It isn't any easier to get bitched at when your the owner than it is to get bitched at when you are just and usher making $6 per hour. While I may have more answers than the usher, I sometimes am at a loss for the solution.

It is most disturbing to have someone complain to you about something that you have worked on and then it still isn't to their satisfaction.

Representative Comlaints That Sting.

"our chairs are uncomfortable."We took over this buisness and put in alot of hard work and money. It always raises my hackles when our best still isn't good enough.

"The senoir price is cheaper down the road." (It isn't) I am thinking of raising our senoir price from $4.50 to $5.50 just to give some weight to their bitches.

"The print of Bridge on the River Kwai isn't very good." I thought it was damn good for a 1957 film that was last restord and printed in 1985. It was better than most subrun prints.

"Why should I pay you $7.50 when I can rent this film at Blockbusters for $3.00?" Why are you standing in front of me?

"How come you don't serve Nachos in your concession stand?" We didn't think you date would find you very attractive with yellow cheese on your shirt. Oh! my mistake, what date?

"How come you don't have THX like the big 14-plex down the street?" THX would require tearing the building down and starting over. Do you have $5,000,000 you can give us?

Yesterday I had a guy who didn't buy a ticket because he didn't believe me when I told him that our matinee price was for the first show only. He informed me that a matinee price was good until 6:00 PM. I informed him that I owned the theatre, I set the rules, the rules are posted on our website, newspaper, box office and phone message machine.

Then I had a lady who told me that I should have a senior discount price on top of our matinee discount price. She seemed to feel that our entertainment was worth $2.00.

There's no pleasing all of the people all of the time. There's some people who are never pleased. There are some people I am convinced, who leave the house looking to pick a fight. There's no pleasing them.

Thank you for allowing me to vent my spleen here as opposed to ventalating my patrons.
 

I can feel for you on all but the seat issue. Not knowing your seats and as to their uncomfortableness or, on a positive side, how comfy they are, if a person finds your seats uncomfortable, no matter how much hard work, time money...etc you put into them, that person found them uncomfortable. It is an opinion thing that, if only one person in 1,000 feels then you are only upsetting a realatively small number. If on the other hand 10 out of every hundred feels uncomfortable in your chairs then there is indeed a problem that would, to some degree, cost you business.

In other words, when someone complains about a problem that you have addressed to some degree, evaluate the complaint(s) and either you have a never-to-be-pleased patron or you still have a problem, even after your hard work and money. It isn't the patron's fault that they don't like what you have done.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

The seat complaint Ian and I receive is only occassionally and usually means the patron has sat in a seat that has worked its way loose and needs adjustment. We look for these problems and correct them to the best of our ability. We'd, of course, love to put in brand new seats with all the latest frills, but bottom line it costs way too much (about $150,000 + shipping, installation, taxes, disposal of old chairs, etc.).

The other part about being an owner, that Ian didn't mention, is that we also get lots of compliments on our theatre as well as many thanks for bringing independent, foreign and classic films to Sonoma County. Most of our regular patrons are extremely supportive and glad we are hear. And they do let us know when we've screwed up and when we've done well. The print condition on Bridge was interesting to me because I received a couple of compliments from customers on how surprised they were that the print was good. We, of course, gave it the Film-Guard treatment and it probably left here cleaner than when we recieved it.

The web is a wonderful tool for hearing from customers. We recieve many e-mails every week, both positive and negative. Fortunately the good ones outweight the bad and the bad ones are usually stuff that we learn from.

When I first took over my booth, it was mass chaos. Picture every horror story you have heard from various booths and bring them to life all in one location -everyday. The guy who did prints would toss trailers across the booth to unwind them. I about had a stroke when I saw that. They dropped a print. It took them three days to get it back up on screen. That’s right THREE DAYS. Scratches (the whole spectrum of colors – favorite of which was green) and sound problems (name it, we heard it) were a regular occurrence. I had a guy that would make adjustments to the sound reader head on the fly. It was my private hell for three months. My district advisor had me sit down and read through all our complaints. Half of the complaints for our chain were on our theater alone. It helped me quite a bit to pin point problems and problem people. I had pages of documentation to get rid of some of the little idiots. Documentation is key in our sue-happy society. And seeing how my theater is right in the middle of one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, Johnson County, KS, the little idiots posed a real legal risk. I had to have the mounds of documentation to why they should never work in a theater again. Lucky for me, they screwed up in ways that bought them instant termination – No call, no show. Then, they went to work for AMC. The AMC 30 in Olathe has picked up a number of Dickinson rejects.

Also, customer comments are good entertainment value. “Can you turn on the THX?” That by far is my favorite. “Can’t you rewind the movie?” That is another top favorite. I always enjoying hearing customer comments.

 

I've given up explaining their system has got some pretty MAJOR problems if dialogue from their 5.1 channel DVD player is coming out of every speaker. In all honesty, I wish THX had never put their seal of approval on equipment. People actually believe they have a THX system just because they bought an amplifier that has the logo on it!

 

And Brad is right. GCC still does have the comment cards that go to the home office.
The other chain I work for has cards that can either go in to the comment box, or be mailed to the home office. The downside is that you have to put a stamp on it. I think that if they really wanted to get customers input they would have bulk mail stamps on them. That way people are more likely to send in positive as well as negative comments. Because it seems like people are more likely to send them in if they are upset.
 

Probably 3/4 of the complaints are things you can do nothing about other than just say uh huh and thank for bringing it to our attention.
 

My most frequent negative feedback notes include:

1. Projector aim problems, aperture plate misalignments, masking misalignments. (Image not projected with sharp edges in alignment with the screen masking). This also includes cases where a flat film is projected with side masking set for scope.

2. Misframings (usually on flat films, when the screen is filled with image, but framing is off by a foot or more on the screen).

3. Lack of adjustable masking (Scope movies shown at 1.85:1 in the Huntsville Regal theatres in two thirds of the auditoriums -- I HATE THAT!)

4. Out of frame splices between trailers or in the movie itself.

5. Sound systems dropping from digital to optical and back often during the show.

Sometimes, there are defects for which I do not know the technical reason. In those cases, I simply describe the problem as it appeared to me in terms of what I saw or heard.

For a complete set of compliments/complaints for every showing 1997 and on, see http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/

Like I said previously, it seems that only one local manager has taken the page seriously. Unfortunately, that manager has been moved to another location.

 

At least 99% of complaints we get are either (i) too loud/too quiet, or (ii) too hot/too cold. Of course this is terribly subjective, and all we can do is to try and second guess different audiences. For example, we have a special oldies' matinee on a Thursday and I always (i) turn the heating right up, and (ii) play the film in mono, because otherwise there will be a barrage of complaints about 'noises' coming from the side of the room...
 

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
 

Would that theatre evaluation program still be considered current for today's standard? Would any permission be needed to incorporate your evaluation program into our company's comment system?
 

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

"This location has, by far, the best projection quality of any Huntsville/Decatur theatre. I've been here 45 times now and have never had a bad experience. Congratulations to the management and staff for maintaining such high quality over the past 3 years!"

Is the following sentence grammatical?

"I have forwarded your comments to the district manager for his review with and congratulations to the theatre manager."

The "with and congratulations" phrase has appeared in many responses I've received from Regal. They're obviously canned, because I don't think a person would use that construction every time.

I send in comment cards quite often about the Regal Hollywood 18 and Madison Square 12 theatres complaining about lack of adjustable masking in two-thirds of their auditoriums (1.85:1 only, with scope chopped -- the Regal in Decatur does not have this problem). I never hear anything from those. It seems that I get far more responses from my positive cards than from more negative ones.

I have included the URL to my site: http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/
in some of my comment cards to Regal and curiously enough, I've never had a hit from the regalcinemas.com domain. I have had hits from the carmike.com domain before.