This week we switched back. We have a few people who thought we still had 12:00 shows and showed up for them. Most were understanding, but a few were downright hostile about our changing the show times. They would spout things like "Why did you do that? NO other theatre changes their show times!" "How do you expect us to know when the shows are if you willy nilly change the show times?" "No other theatre changes their show times on Friday!" "There should be public notification when you change you show times?"
That last one was my favorite because my cashier held up today’s paper and said, "Like this ad we place every day in the newspaper?" I was so proud.
Now I am not totally impressed because we have 50 or 60 people in the auditoriums that got the times right.
Come on say it with me All theatres change their show times on Friday! except when they don't.
The ones I hate are the ones that change their show times EVERY DAY! Also equally bad are theaters that run 5 shows on weekends and 4 shows on weekdays where the weekday times are different than the last 4 rounds on the weekend.
it's funny that you wrote that because I had the same exact thing happen this morning, we have our first show at 10:45 this week instead of 10:30 which is was last week, and I had an old lady yells at me about changing the movie times without notification, and I did the same thing, I held the paper, said the times are in the everyday, plus whe have a sign outside that tells the times for the day, and on top of all of that we have a voice recording you can call to tell the times, but still after all of that it was still my fault, cause I must work for the booking office or something, I'll hate to be there next week if she comes in to find the first movie is at 11:10 and all our prices went up, which happened today and pisses me off, but that's a whole nother story
Jesse - about keeping the times the same, I usually TRY to do that, but sometimes it's necessary to shuffle them around a bit. It's not a scientific process, but a well-built show schedule may require it. Don't get me wrong - there are some people out there that change every showtime every week...but they're just as bad as those that keep the same firm showtimes set in stone for the life of the print.
Our first show is normally at 9.30 or 9.45 AM followed by 10.00, 10.15 and 10.30. This is everyday of the week
Our owner figures that he will be there as will a cashier, why let the cinemas sit empty all day when you could have some paying customers. These early morning shows are very popular with housewives who have just dropped the kids off at school and retired people.
It is very rare for us to have the same movie at the same time for 2 days in a row so the customers really need to check our ads or flyers.
My favourite customer for the day was an old lady who came up to the boxoffice and started to complain because she had booked her seats and the usher told her it was not actually reserved. She was so mad she was shaking, she particularly wanted the back seats for her 3 (also elderly) friends. I told her that there would be heaps of seats as only 40 had been sold but she wanted HER reserved seats. What can you do? Nothing, except tell the usher to show the lady some seats in one of the three EMPTY back rows and say that those are the seats she requested.
Paul
On the marquee
In the front window
In two different newspapers
On a cable-tv sports channel (in a neighboring town)
On the radio (usually)
On our own website
On hollywood.com
In our weekly e-mail
On our phone system (regular and toll-free numbers)
Ain't people fun?
By the way, were these the same people that came to my theatre, looked at the timeboard for six minutes and then asked the cashier what time the movie starts? 
I swear this happens at least once or twice a year. (again)
Oh boy!
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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
"Is this film only 45 minutes long?!?"
or confusion from odd titles, like the porno film "Misty Beethoven" where a darling little senior citizen woman came up to our box office limping on her cane, and sweetly and shyly asked for a ticket to see "Mister Beethoven."...
But I'd have to say the stupidist showtime question I've heard of isn't even a question.
The Miami Herald time clock started losing theatres well over a year ago, in 1999. One of the theatres that closed was a little 4plex conversion with no chance of ever reopening. The owner, ever hopeful, requested the Herald slug it as "Closed until January 2000, call theatre for showtimes."
Some brilliant employee of the Herald regularly continues placing this slug, so new readers looking for movies are confronted with the option of visiting a theatre closed "until January 2000" long after January and any evidence of a theatre have passed.
BTW, I'm fairly sure this theatre was in Palm Beach County, and we all know how confused people get there. I'd bet some folks show up to see what's not playing.
We had two prints of Best in Show. Our show times were 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 & 10. I got this question from one person at least once per day. 
When I worked at the Orpheum which is a restored 1935 art deco picture palace, we had little plastic clocks with a real clock face made up and would place them beside the name of the film on the sign above the box office.
Soooooo many (young) people complained that they couldn't understand those times and why didn't we get REAL 'digital' clocks?
Sheesh!
What on earth do they teach kids in school, anyway if they don't teach them how to tell the time?
The Orpheum has a pretty sucky website, but you get the idea at http://www.orpheum.com.au/ . The new cinemas 1 and 2 I had nothing to do with. And from the looks of them...that can only be a good thing.
Hey! Cinema one has 'SR' stereo!
I swallowed my pride and took in the 8:45 show.
Also, we often have booking cancellations for previews because they "don't want to pay to see a trailer!!" we have to patiently persuade them that a preview is actually the whole feature!
This literally was heard every weekend at the first theater I worked for (along with: "I'll have a large popcorn with EXTRA butter, and a Diet Coke" followed by my favorite response from our surly concession workers: "Yeah, cause it's the sugar water that makes you fat").
I know EXACTLY how you feel. However we have yet another challenge for our customers. Our 11-screen theater is split into a 3-screen and an 8 screen building. And you can't access one from the other from inside (people love that part in Minnesota). This causes all sorts of problems.
The most common is showing up to the wrong building when we have two or more prints split between the two buildings. And as most anyone knows, people don't generally read signs...let alone 6'x10' marquees. The conversation between our box office personell and lost customers usually goes like this:
C: "Is ShrEEEEEK! playing here?"
BO: "No, I'm sorry, Shrek it's in the other building down the sidewalk"
C: "It says you're playing it in this building"
BO: "It's playing on two screens, the showtime you are looking for is in the other building"
C: "I have to go outside? Can't I get there from inside?"
BO: "Sorry, no."
C: "Well, what's the next showtime in this building"
BO: "An hour from now."
C: "Well what else is starting now?"
BO: "Moulin Rouge starts in 5 minutes."
C: "Well give me a ticket for that"
BO: "That's playing down the sidewalk too"
This is usually when the customer's head explodes. We have mop crews standing by. I do feel sorry tho when I have to explain an old lady with an oxygen tank that just spent half an hour walking 10 feet from her car to the door that she has to walk another 40 feet to the other building.
I think my favorite senario (and this happens more frequently with two prints playing in opposite buildings--but not always) is when two people are meeting at our theater and end up waiting for an hour in opposite buildings. The best was when a lady was screaming at the top of her lungs in my lobby telling her husband she was AT THE THEATER!!! and from the sound of the screams coming from her cell phone, so was he. I knew what happened, but I couldn't speak...I was laughing too hard.
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Adam Fraser
www.pinestheatre.com
Having three simultaneous long-running hits has meant that there have been many wonderful smaller films that have not yet made it onto our screens. Every week more and more films are released and our backlog of un-played films keeps growing. Five screens aren’t enough…we really need eight. Who knew? Since adding three screens isn’t a simple, quick or easy thing, we’ve had to get creative.
Beginning Friday, April 12th, we are pleased to announce a new programming initiative here at the Rialto. We call it MOVIES IN THE MORNING. Movies in the Morning is a four times a week program dedicated to bringing in many of the smaller films that we haven’t had a chance to play. It also gives us the opportunity to holdover certain titles a little while longer without creating such a logjam on our five screens. Here’s how it works: Every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday, we will open at 10:15am for a set of shows starting between 10:30 and 11:15am. Typically, three of the films will be a combination of new films and holdovers. The other two films will be selected from our regular daytime slate of films. All morning shows will be at our bargain price of $5.50.
Movies in the Morning will be featured in our regular ads in the PD and the Bohemian as well as on our web site, weekly e-mail and recording. There are several theatres in LA that have a similar program that works very well for them. However, to our knowledge, no one in Northern California has attempted such a program, so it is a bit of an experiment. We’ll see how it goes. Our hope is that you, our audience, have the opportunity to see some films that otherwise probably wouldn’t have made it to Sonoma County.
Let's how much this confuses our customers.