Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: AMC's new luxury seats not aging well

This is topic AMC's new luxury seats not aging well in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 07-02-2015, 05:43 AM:

My local AMC, Flatiron Crossing 14, was one of the first in the country to receive their new luxury seat prototypes - motorized recliners with leather seating surfaces and footrests.

Unfortunately, after only about two years, the leather has not aged well, exhibiting significant cracking and drying out.

(For some reason Film-Tech rotated the image, but the surface to the right is the cushion one sits on):

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 07-02-2015, 03:32 PM:

Yeah, leather may look and feel nice, but it has to be cleaned and oiled on a regular basis. You can't just let it sit there.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-02-2015, 03:32 PM:

Well that's no surprise, considering the amount of butt traffic these seats probably get. People are rough on things. Even expensive "fine furniture" would never stand up to daily commercial use.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-02-2015, 03:46 PM:

Real leather looks and feels very nice (hence its widespread use in clothing and furniture), but it isn't tough or durable. A couple of years ago I was chatting to a Delta flight attendant I ended up sitting next to on a trip, who told me that they were replacing their trademark leather seat upholstery with plastic imitation material, because the real leather ones wore out so quickly that they were costing the airline a fortune (plus, he charmingly pointed out, it's much easier to clean vomit from fake leather).

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 07-02-2015, 04:28 PM:

There are many grades of leather. Full grain hides are the thickest and longest lasting - I've seen club chairs that are used hours a day, a hundred years old, in good shape - but that stuff is very expensive and difficult to work with. Most modern upholstery leather is split or shaved hide - several sheets cut from one skin. That looks pretty close but doesn't wear as well. Then there's "pressed leather" that's made b chooping up leather scraps and sticking them together into a sheet with a leathery texture on one side, then gluing that to a fabric backing. Looks pretty leather-like but wears through quickly. Advantage - way, way cheaper than real leather.
That seat looks like pressed leather, since you can see what looks like the fabric backing in the cracks. Plus I have a pressed leather couch that looks just like that.
I don't get why leather is so expensive. It's essentially a waste product from slaughtering cattle - and man we slaughter a lot of cattle in North America - soaked in chemicals for a while to cure the raw skin into leather. The stuff should be almost free.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 07-02-2015, 04:53 PM:

Maybe it's time to start talking to the automotive industry. So many cinema seats are of deplorable quality, especially over here, but they're no less expensive. The guys in automotive sure know how to construct things that last for a while at reasonable costs...

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 07-02-2015, 10:01 PM:

I've seen a lot of car seats that look worse, but they're also subject to very high temperatures and UV, which theatre seats are not.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 07-02-2015, 11:42 PM:

here in the DC area - the seating in the Club Cinema at Mazza Gallerie is not fairing to well as well.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-03-2015, 11:03 AM:

Thanks for the background info, Dave.

quote: Dave Macaulay
I don't get why leather is so expensive. It's essentially a waste product from slaughtering cattle - and man we slaughter a lot of cattle in North America - soaked in chemicals for a while to cure the raw skin into leather. The stuff should be almost free.

I'd guess that raw, totally untreated and unprocessed leather is almost free, and that the reason the final product is so expensive is the cost of what has to be done to it between coming off the cow and our butts sinking in to it. It's the same syndrome whereby barley and spring water are almost free, but a bottle of single malt certainly ain't (though admittedly most of the differential is tax, so that probably isn't the right analogy).

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-03-2015, 04:26 PM:

You could make the same argument for just about any product, such as popcorn...the ingredients are super cheap, but the labor, equipment and manpower to turn it into a tasty product all add to the cost.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-03-2015, 04:48 PM:

Tanning leather for upholstery likely uses chromic acid and/or other similar kinds of methyl-ethyl-badshit. Tanning for clothing uses different chemicals but, none the less, there are environmental concerns.

A lot of the expense of leather and fur goods comes from the cost associated with cleanup and recycling of chemicals.

Secondarily, leather and fur goods requires a lot of hand work by skilled people.
This kind of labor doesn't come cheap.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 07-03-2015, 11:09 PM:

I wonder if some uninformed employee or custodian used Armorall on it...

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 07-04-2015, 09:16 AM:

quote: William Kucharski
I've seen a lot of car seats that look worse, but they're also subject to very high temperatures and UV, which theatre seats are not.

Well, sure, there are also a lot of crappy car seats out there. [Wink]

Still, the industry also knows how to produce stuff that's both comfy and can withstand years of non-stop abuse.

I'm also not so sure if I would go for leather, the stuff that's still somewhat affordable usually is of the sub-par type and will wear and tear within a year (Let's call that the poetic truth [Wink]

).

I'm not the leather specialist, but isn't the kind of leather that lasts for a lifetime also the kind of leather that's hard like a rock? There must be synthetic alternatives that work better.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 07-04-2015, 09:23 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
I'm not the leather specialist, but isn't the kind of leather that lasts for a lifetime also the kind of leather that's hard like a rock?

I think you are right. My wife's 6.5 year old ford escape with 120,000 miles on it has leather seats. They barely show any sign of wear but they are a very stiff leather. I certainly wouldn't want a sofa made out of it!

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 07-07-2015, 11:42 AM:

Have you seen the average American butt lately? These seats need to be rated for HEAVY duty! [Eek!]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-07-2015, 12:31 PM:

I had no idea just how abusive customers can be with movie theater sets until my late friend who managed our Carmike theater showed me some examples. Some of the wear and tear is just outright vandalism. People knife up seats, stub lit cigarettes out on them and even tear off arm rests.

The tears and cracks in those leather seats at that AMC location could be caused by elements on customers' clothing. Some people like to stuff their mobile phone in the back pocket and then sit on it. The phone and/or its case is getting gouged into the seat.

It's kind of nice to be able to watch the movie in a big recliner, but I would trade that for a regular theater seat if the savings was getting put into the sound and projection.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-07-2015, 12:58 PM:

I think people are more abusive to theater seats than they are to car seats. First, many times they allow themselves to "drop" into the seat. Then they sit there for two hours squirming around (I think people tend to sit more still in car seats). They put their feet on the seats in front. They spill stuff. They have pens, knives, or other hard objects in their pockets. If the movie is boring maybe they'll pick at the seat seams or something. And of course you have vandalism happening too -- which can also occur when the movie is boring. (I don't think anybody vandalizes their own car seats.)

And kids -- well they are adult type abuse on steroids.

I would guess the AVERAGE car seat doesn't get sat in for more than a few minutes a day during commutes. I know my own pickup, I probably drive it less than a half hour per day. Whereas the most popular rows of a busy movie theater get sat in and abused for several hours a day, every day.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-07-2015, 01:58 PM:

When I set up my theatre 20-odd years ago, I purchased used seats (and a bunch of other stuff) from a theatre that had gone bankrupt a short while before, so I have no idea how old they actually are.

Today, about 70% of my seats bottoms (at a guess) are still covered in the original upholstery that was on it when I got them, and I have never had to re-upholster a seat back at all.

I have had to replace several of the springs that make the seat bottom fold up, though. Probably 50% of those springs have broken at one time or the other.