Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: A fun night at the theatre due to my error.

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Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 08-02-2001, 10:28 PM:

Well, after seeing at least 282 movies in my area in the last few years, I finally made a mistake that I'd never made before, and one that I never dreamed I'd make.

I went in the wrong auditorium.

I went to Regal Hollywood 18 with the intention of seeing "Final Fantasy". I bought my ticket and went to the auditorium entrance. Since there was only one "Final Fantasy" showing time that night (7:15 PM), another movie was being played in the auditorium during the 9ish slot. I looked up at the sign and it said in marquee style letters, "FANTASY", along with a sign for another movie. I noticed that there were two doors leading into the auditorium, as I'd encountered many times before. I chose the left entrance. I sat down a couple of minutes and went back to the lobby to use the restroom and saw the manager, whom I'd never talked to. I had a conversation with her. She was very friendly and pleasant to talk to. In fact, this theatre visit was worth it just to have had that conversation with her. We talked about 5 minutes about a few different things, then I went back to the auditorium, looked at the sign again, and went in the same left door I'd previously gone in.

I sat down and after all the previews, I thought the Amblin logo was odd. Jurassic Park III started, and I knew the wrong movie was being played. Nobody got up or said anything, so I figured, "Well, I'll watch Jurassic Park III". 30 minutes into it, I decided I really didn't want to sit through it. I got up and went outside the door and looked at the sign again. I realized there were two signs. The left sign said "Jurassic Park III" and the right one was the "Fantasy" one. I opened the right door and sure enough, instead of being a second entrance to the auditorium, it led to a hallway that led to the auditorium I was supposed to be in.

I was too embarrased to go and tell someone that I'd gone in the wrong theatre (being a presentation quality reviewer), especially after talking to the manager about technical stuff, so I went on in and watched the last two thirds of Final Fantasy, which wasn't all that great. The computer animated human beings were great, but I didn't really understand the movie (maybe seeing the beginning would have helped, or not), but it was better than having to sit through another hour of dinosaur attack gore.

The fun started when the show was over and I went to the restroom. I ran into a friend that I'd just seen across town at the mall food court. It was the third time I'd run into him, at 3 totally different locations, in a 4-hour time period! We started laughing about that, and I told him my movie had just ended. He asked which movie I saw and I said "Final Fantasy" and he replied, "That's the one we were in! Were you in there? I didn't see you." Then I told him about going in the wrong theatre and going in about 30 minutes into Final Fantasy. He and his friend and I has a good time laughing about this. We were then standing right in front of the theatre office when we were talking about this and a staff member heard the conversation and the manager (that I'd just talked to earlier) came out and she said, "I just heard that you saw the wrong movie for 20 minutes." Embarrassed, I then explained how I'd made the error. She handed me a pass and told me that making that error with those two auditoriums was common. I told her she didn't have to give me a pass since it was totally my error and not the theatre's, but she insisted I take it.

The funny thing is that this night would have been rather boring and dull has everything gone the way it was supposed to have been. My error caused both my mood and my friends' mood to be much better than if I hadn't made the mistake. As for reviewing the presentations, I didn't count them, since there is no fair way to do it, using my software, that I would be pleased with. I can now look forward to being picked on next week at the Baptist Student Center (where those two friends I ran into were from) for going in the wrong theatre.

So, how many of you would confess to going in the wrong auditorium of a theatre by accident?

Do any of you work at theatres where some auditoriums are signed/labeled in a way that leads to customers often going into the wrong auditorium?

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Posted by Gordon Hedges III (Member # 863) on 08-02-2001, 10:55 PM:

Evans, I know how you feel. I have been waiting for Favreau's film "MADE" to come out and was so happy to see it playing at one of the local theatres in my area. This film is currently playing in 105 theatres nation-wide, so of course I would feel lucky to find it in a MEGA-PLEX near me. I rushed out of my theatre in Annapolis and sped on to just south of Baltimore. I walk up to the box office and ask for the 5:15 MADE. Finished my transaction, took my ticket and proceeded to the auditorium. It wasn't until I was a few doors away did I realize which movie I actually had a ticket for. A few young kids pointed at the TOMB RAIDER marquee, which was in the auditorium on my ticket. I did a double-take and noticed that the box office cashier gave me the wrong ticket. I have been so accustommed to reading the Auditorium #'s at my theatre than reading the titles on the stubs. I had to walk all the way back through the hallway, across the huge lobby of this 24-plex and enter my correct theatre (stopping by the customer service desk along the way to get the correct ticket). At least I was fortunate not to watch TOMB RAIDER again.

Oh, BTW, I really did enjoy MADE.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 08-03-2001, 12:11 AM:

So, Evans, was the theater trying to save money by having one marquee for two auditoriums? That would seem really cheap, considering their customers are apparently confused because of it.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 08-03-2001, 05:01 AM:

There are a couple of theatres in my area that have a layout that causes people to go into the wrong theatre. The building is arranged on a kind of "T" layout where theatres #1 through 5 are on the "cross bar" of the "T". The main hallway intersects the cross bar at a place that's 1/2 way between #3 and #4, leaving theatres #4 and #5 on the right branch of the "T".

So far, not too bad, eh? Well #5, the big house, is right at the end of the hall. You walk straight into it. #4 is on the side, right next to #5. The doors are only a few feet apart. (At right angles to each other.) You can be looking for thatre #4 and very easily walk right past it and straight on to #5 without even noticing you went into the wrong one. The ushers used to be in the habit of saying to customers, "Down the hall and turn right..." Now they have been trying to get in the habit of making it clear which thetre to send the customer to.

Short of putting an usher at the junction to steer people to the right place, there's nothing that can be done to make sure this doesn't happen. We all know how likely THAT is!

Heck, I've worked at this job for almost a year! I can drive 500 miles to get to that theatre without a problem but I get lost when I have to walk 10 feet to get into an auditorium!

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 08-03-2001, 05:21 AM:

When I saw this topic, I hoped that it would be something really fun like you tripping over the extension cord and killing the projector.

What are theater designers thinking?

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 08-03-2001, 09:00 AM:

A while back I went to see China Town at a plex that was hosting a revival package/series. I had never been to the theater before. It was a multilevel sort of affair and the individual auditoriums didn't have the movie it was showing, only the a number outside the door. I asked an "usher" which auditorium China Town was in and he looked at me like I was crazy. We went to another usher and she didn't know either. By this time we were running out of time. Finally we got an usher who didn't know but got on the walky talky and then told us to go to auditorium 5. We got in as the lights began to dim. It was packed, but we finally found a pair of seats on the isle. The film started and we heard the familiar sound of the opening of 2001. We jumped up ran out and caught the first usher we found and were told that CT was next door in auditorium 4 (again by walky talky). We finally made it to the right film but it was about 5 minutes in and I really really hate coming in late to a film. We've never been back to that place

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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 08-03-2001, 09:35 AM:

quote:
So, Evans, was the theater trying to save money by having one marquee for two auditoriums? That would seem really cheap, considering their customers are apparently confused because of it.

No. There were actually two separate signs above the entrances. The left one said "Jurassic Park 3" on it and the right one wa split half and half with "FANTASY" in marquee style letters on the left side and "Kiss of the Dragon" on the right. I did not notice the Jurassic Park 3 sign until I came out 30 minutes after Jurassic Park 3 has started, when I decided I really didn't want to watch it.

The reason I made the mistake is because nearly all the other auditorium entrances there (and at other theatres) have a recession with two doors, and both go into the same auditorium. When I spotted the sign for "Final Fantasy", I didn't look at the signs overhead anymore and instead looked at the recession with the 3 doors. There was a left door, a closet door, and a right door. I picked the left door arbitrarily (although the "FANTASY" part of the sign I looked at was on the left portion and it probably nudged me to think that way). There was a Jurassic Park 3 sign there, but I wasn't looking up there any more because I was standing in the recession looking at the doors.

If this theatre is a "mirror" image design, then auditoriums 12 and 13 will be configured the same way. By the way, Cobb built this theatre, not Regal. The two auditoriums, once you get in them, are like two peas in a pod. Both are 28 feet wide with 1.85:1-only screens with no masking. Auditorium 7 seats roughly half what the other one (auditorium 6) seats, but still, they seemed the same to me.

I'd only been in that particular auditorium I was supposed to be in twice before: for Mars Attacks, back when it was auditorium 6, and Toy Story 2, shortly after the renumbering when the two new auditoriums were added. Before stadium seating was put in, I remember it (current number 7) as being a very odd little auditorium, with the back row of seats under the rear wall.

I put this in the "Film-Yak" forum because I didn't expect the thread to evolve quite the way it did. In retrospect, I probably should have titled it "Customers going into wrong auditoriums" in Ground Level. Oh well. I figured it would get more silly, so I put it in Film-Yak.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-03-2001, 12:17 PM:

We only have one auditorium but there are two hallways leading to it, plus stairs to the balcony. We regularly get tourists from big cities who buy a ticket, then go into the lobby and ask "which one is (fill in movie name)?"

It's easy to tell these people from the locals, because the tourists always name the movie they're seeing when they buy their tickets!

Posted by Phil Connolly (Member # 465) on 08-03-2001, 12:27 PM:

The silliest thing I've done in this respect, was to turn up for 'Magnolia' 1hour 20 minutes early. My watch was wrong, due to Daylight-savings-time and I had forgot to put it forward one hour.

It was also the first showing of the day of the film, there were only two showings a day because of its 3hour+ running time. The scary thing is the Usher let me into the Screen anyway, still 1hr20mins before the start time. At first I was thinking great, screen to myself then when the film didn't start I had another look at my watch and I realised my mistake.

I didn't want to sit in an empty audatorium untill the movie started,so in order to avoid embarrassment I wandered out the fire exit, one hour later if the usher noticed anything strange about the fact that the ticket had already been torn he didn't say anything.

Still all that embarrassment was worth it Magnolia was great!

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 08-03-2001, 12:28 PM:

Evans, have you given any thought to going to your next film as Brad Miller? You may want to borrow Joe's seeing eye nose? Just a thought!

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 08-03-2001, 03:30 PM:

Actually, since I'm a quality reviewer and most staff at the theatres know me, I though it might be fun to attempt to disguise myself. I wonder how well that idea would work.

It would be fun to disguise myself as Brad Miller and go to Brad Miller's theatre. I wonder how that would go over. Disguising myself as Joe wouldn't work because I'd probably scare everyone and draw too much attention to myself. Maybe with my long hair I could try dressing up in drag and hope I didn't encounter anyone who would recognize me. I could probably have pulled that off 5 or more years ago when I was slimmer, but now, my stomach is too big.

I haven't noticed the operators trying to adjust things or fix things that they ordinarily wouldn't when I go the theatres, so disguising myself isn't worth the effort at this point.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 08-03-2001, 03:43 PM:

Evans said: "Maybe with my long hair I could try dressing up in drag and hope I didn't encounter anyone who would recognize me."

The digital beard would definitely have to go!

"I could probably have pulled that off 5 or more years ago when I was slimmer, but now, my stomach is too big."

You could always wear a maternity dress.

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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 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 08-03-2001, 06:01 PM:

Evans, John P. has come up with the perfect plan, unfortunately we can not tell him...this has to be a secret between you and me. No one else must know. I won't tell so please don't you.

Now listen carefully, you must buy a maternity dress or borrow one from a heavey set lady. Put it on, don't forget to shave your legs, and board a plane for Chicago. They don't know you there and besides they are still lookng for Mark G., you could go to Margate, FL. but since we don't know what Jerry Chase looks like he could have been separated at birth from you and be a twin brother. (Stranger things have happened.)

When you land in Chicago go to the closest theatre playing the picture you want to review and tell the cashier you need to speak to the manager.Tell him that a pass was called into the main office by the director (make sure you don't arrive til office is closed) and you are here to review the film for the London Times. Be sure you have the proper fake ID.

Watch film...review. fax to your home...get out of that ridiculous dress...get on a plane and go back to Huntsville. Send your expense report to John P. @ Kodak they will cover and if they don't submit to George at the ranch in CA.

Peace, Semper Fi...remember don't tell a soul...

P.S.Evans Rip this up and swallow it...we can't let a soul find out