Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Rant on feet on seats

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Posted by Louis Belloisy (Member # 3836) on 08-24-2008, 03:08 PM:

We have three theaters with fairly new seats. One of my pet peeves is patrons with their feet on the seat tops in front of them. 90 percent of patrons that do this are young girls, although I have found a few instances of older women with their feet up. Older women must have a problem getting their feet that high.

Most time, the young girls have bare feet and its really disgusting. When warned they take offense. I have had several turn me in to management for being rude. I do say please, although it kills me to do so.

In one of our theaters, some group had pushed so hard on the seats in front of them that they distorted 4 seats and bent them forward.

Most of our young staff see nothing wrong with this and are hesitant to tell the patron to remove their feet. Most times the staff know the young patron.

And while I am ranting. Doing a theater check a few months back, i caught a young guy trying to set fire to the bottom of a seat, and the sad part of it was that he was trying to set fire to the seat he was sitting on.

We have to be so careful in dealing with these kids, because they will come back and do damage. So far, they have set fire to the building and broken several thousand dollar windows and put graffiti on the all external walls.

how do you guys handle this?

Louis

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 08-24-2008, 03:14 PM:

quote: Louis Belloisy
Most of our young staff see nothing wrong with this and are hesitant to tell the patron to remove their feet. Most times the staff know the young patron.

Our ushers get the task of cleaning the seat backs and as such most don't take kindly to people putting their feet up.

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 08-24-2008, 06:40 PM:

I can top that (not the arson part though). The other day, I looked down through the porthole during the preshow and saw one of the idiot floor staffers with his feet on the seat in front of him! I have previously taken issue with this buffoon, so to prevent bloodshed, I had the manager go yell at him in the half full auditorium in front of several of his friends (one of whom is also employed at the theater). As the principle repairer of anything and everything in my theater, including seats, I take a dim view on such behavior. If I had the authority to do so, I would've written this kid up.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 08-24-2008, 07:08 PM:

Same problems here, too bad we can't just shoot the bastards, probably wouldn't have to shoot more than 3 or 4 and they would stop.

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 08-24-2008, 08:17 PM:

Bill, I like your solution. Simple yet effective. Think it would work as well for cell phones?

Posted by Marc Hansen (Member # 705) on 08-24-2008, 08:45 PM:

Don't forget to leave the dead body hanging in front of the theater as a warning to others.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-24-2008, 08:54 PM:

Feet-on-seats is a problem that simply will not go away. When we put in new seats a few years ago, we took out two rows and spread the seats apart more -- partly to increase legroom, but also to make it less comfortable to put feet up. The legroom is now great, but the kids just slouch down far enough to put their feet up.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 08-24-2008, 09:03 PM:

Since all the seats in one row are connected together, it might be fun to insulate all the seats from the ground then connect all the alternating rows to the electric supply.

Connect all the odd numbered rows to the hot lead and all the even rows to the neutral.

When the next idiot puts his feet up and his body makes the connection between hot and ground, he'll be in for one hell of a surprise! [evil]

Posted by Allison Parsons (Member # 2728) on 08-24-2008, 11:56 PM:

Louis,

Are you having more trouble with dirty seat backs or broken chairs?

I am 100% guilty of putting my feet up on seats. Not the high-back newer chairs, but the older shorter back ones. I slouch and usually place my knees up on the front seat. I hate to admit it but that is my comfy movie watching position that I have not broke out of in 12 years.

Now, I have also been on the other side of the spectrum and have scrubbed seat backs in two 290 seat auditoriums in one day. Never have been so sorer(sp) the next day than after that project. [Smile]

A round of applause to all who have black seatsbacks in their theaters. [Big Grin]

Maybe you could go in, shine a bright flashlight on their feet until they take them down. Don't say a single word, just shine a light so everyone can see their nasty feet. I would hope they get the hint.

We've had ushers sit behind the offending patron for awhile just to spook them after their warning. Of course when the usher leaves, they usually go back to what their doing.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 08-25-2008, 02:24 AM:

This is where the lecherous male employee comes in handy:
"Those are some cute feet you have there..."

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-25-2008, 04:17 AM:

A six-plex in our area did a complete location overhaul including installing new RGS seats.

Not bad seats mind you, but with a horrible design flaw: The seat back framework is made out of thin angle iron with the attachment arms coming out at a right angle at the base of the seat back and it bolts to the seat pan with a large rubber filled insert that allows a rocking motion for the seats.

Kids now find that if they put their feet on the seat back in front of them and PUSH as all they can, that thin angle iron really buckles to where the seat back that they are sitting in is almost bent to a full recline afterwards.

Sadly, less than a year the remodel, a good 30 backs have already been bent, along with a dozen rubber inserts have been destroyed.

Oh, and 12 seatcovers have already been cut with two cushions that were attacked by "foam gophers" - gophers that love to rip out the foam rubber from within the cushions..

The digital hall marquees have a definite msg added with the show title on keeping the feet off the seats .... but you think that ever works?

-Monte

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-25-2008, 05:18 AM:

Long ago in the days of screening manual glass slides, if there was a person with their feet on the seats, I would leave the 'Please Keep Your Feet Off The Seats' house slide on until they woke up it was pointed at them and they did. Of course, glass slides get hot and can break after about 20 to 25 seconds...so I had 2 'PKYFOTS' slides and would just go between them until they did. If they were too stupid still to realise it was pointed at them, the other patrons would twig to it and tell them to look at the screen.

Once they did, it was on with the show.

Ah....memories. [Wink]

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 08-25-2008, 06:32 AM:

A squirt gun through the projection port works wonders.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-25-2008, 07:42 AM:

quote: Bill Enos
Same problems here, too bad we can't just shoot the bastards, probably wouldn't have to shoot more than 3 or 4 and they would stop.

Oh the cruelty! Bill....how could you?! I am totally against such inhumane tactics. Where is your empathy, Bill? Your humanity? I say, simply sledge-hammer their toes....one at a time. The screams alone will be just as effective as public hangings.

We had refurbished our seats a few years back and we were actually talking about putting a railing across the backs of each row -- the idea being, if you can't fight them, join them. Such a bar would protect the seat and give the futhermuckers someplace other than the seat back to rest their peds -- and much like Randy's idea, there was talk of wiring them up to those cattle fence chargers. It proved to be to costly.

Now we just have ushers do the flashlight thing. There are always two ushers equipped with high intensity narrow beam police flashlights in the house. When one sees feet going up, he aims his light at the other usher to get his attention and then at the perp's feet. The other usher positions himself so he too can aim his flashlight, but he aims at the perp's face -- directly in the eyes. They both jiggle the light until the idiot puts his feet down.

As for distructive retaliation like breaking things, graffiti, etc., we are lucky in that we have never had that to deal with (knock on wood). I think the idea of using a method of not talking or engaging with the individual goes a long way to stopping any escalation, especially since young people, males in particular feel they need to save-face when called out verbally. When they are embarrassed and humiliated in front of their friends they need to "display" (basically showing everyone that they don't have pea-size testicals) no matter if they are right or wrong. Just shining a light on them avoids much of this.

The only instance that I am aware of where someone didn't put their feet down and asked "why are you shining that in my face, man?" All the usher said was, "You need to take your feet off the seat." And he did. If he had refused, the ushers are instructed not to engage any further but walkie-talkie for our security for assistance. In such a case there is no discusion either; they are just escorted out of the theatre.

I think we do have the advantage that there are security patrols around our theatre and the building itself is not on a public street but in a closed campus.

Still, baring the pesky legal entanglements of Bill's most excellent suggestion, I vote for my second choice....sledge-hammering toes.

Posted by Louis Belloisy (Member # 3836) on 08-25-2008, 07:49 AM:

Hello Allison, we are experiencing more broken seats than dirty ones. Its unfortunate that all of our managers are adolescents and they do not see the problem. Its hard for a manager to manage a person his or her age, and is their friend.

We never had this problem until a few years ago when all the garbage films started to show up oriented to the teens. That was the start of lots of problems.

Louis

Louis

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 08-25-2008, 09:33 AM:

One of the issues that causes broken seat backs is the rather flimsy construction of the backs, it doesn't take much pressure to bend or break them. Probably the best point in the construction of our 80 year old seats is the backs and the seat cushion bottoms are built on one inch thick plywood. I've tried and I can't get enough pressure against the backs to break one. The sleazy sheet metal seats that are being built today can barely resist moderate pressure.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 08-25-2008, 10:05 AM:

Actually a lot of women are keen on that position. I have noticed that too. Mostly women. Men usually just kick the hell out of the front seat!! Women like to take their shoes off and place their toes at the tip of the chair. Even in cars, women who sit next to you have the tendency to do that (especially after a night out). Live with it!!
Demetris

Posted by Patrick Dunn (Member # 3333) on 08-25-2008, 06:19 PM:

I used to tell people to take their feet off the seats in front of them. I would walk into the theater and see about 10 people who had their feet up, and just go to the person to the closest to the front and ask them to take their feet off. once i turned around and started walking towards the back and just glance at everyone else, they would take their feet off. But the person who changes the seat covers told me I shouldn't bother people by doing that so I stopped. I was trying to help him out by trying to save the seats, but I would have to talk to people about every 5 minutes. I'm more worried about cell phones.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 08-25-2008, 08:27 PM:

quote: Randy Stankey
it might be fun to insulate all the seats from the ground then connect all the alternating rows to the electric supply

Randy, that's HILARIOUS!

ROFL!

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 08-25-2008, 09:38 PM:

I had a science teacher in high school who had a hand held Tessla coil. If he caught you sleeping in class he'd sneak up and zap the metal frame of your chair... Which carried the current through to the metal rivets that fastened the wooden seat to the frame... Which, in turn carried the current directly to your ass! [Eek!]

He only ever had to do that trick once every year.
Word got around pretty fast!

I just figured the same technique would work for movie theaters! [Big Grin]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-26-2008, 09:47 PM:

....prob be more fun with a cattle prod though.... [evil]

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 08-27-2008, 12:44 AM:

There is always the customers who will expect the zapping, and start preferring to attend your theatre for it.
"There's something wrong in my movie...I put my feet on the chair in front of me and I didn't get zapped. I paid my $10 and I expect to get zapped! I want to speak to your manager!"
Manager comes downstairs with cattle prod (and rainchecks). Maybe some water in a squirt bottle to mist up the customer before the cattle prod. Gotta hate it when one's equipment fails and one has to improvise...

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 08-27-2008, 01:08 AM:

Hey! Just had a thought!
Isn't a xenon lamp igniter basically a spark gap style tesla coil?

So, all you'd have to do is run a nice piece of insulated wire from the igniter of each projector and connect it to the frame of the seats!

Whenever somebody puts their feet up, all you have to do is walk over to the projector and press the button!
[Big Grin]

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 09-02-2008, 09:11 PM:

We have some asshole who removes the screws holding the seat cushions to the hinged support brackets and leaves the cushion on the floor. No! the screws are not working loose and falling out. Not likely all six screws would come out on the same night, twice he's gotten three seats in one night.