![]() The correspondent to that programme reported that their son ended up in different seat, because, not unreasonably, he didn’t want the hassle and the confrontation on a trip out. ![]() It was the point ultimate made on the Kermode & Mayo show, and I think that’s bang on. Wherever you stand on allocated seating, it’s surely pointless if the cinema itself doesn’t enforce it. I love the cinema, and remain convinced that it, by distance, is the best place to see a film.īut not when you’re left to enforce the policies of a multiplex, because there’s nobody else on hand to do it. You pay a not-always-economical price to go and see a film on an enormous screen, with a proper sound system, whilst you’re told to relax by the cinema’s on-screen blurb the tends to play at the start of movies. For many of us, at the end of a long day, it’s a treat. And can’t work if – here it comes – there’s nobody there to enforce it. Can’t work if those who sit in the wrong seat refuse to move. However: allocated seating can’t work if people don’t sit in the allocated seat. Likewise, those who are hard of hearing may favour a particular spot to get the most out of the feature concerned. For those with limited mobility but who aren’t in a wheelchair, reserved seating can also be a godsend. That you can get the seat you want, you know where you’re going, and you know that your party can all sit together. In theory, the principal behind the idea is sound, and it certainly favours those who prebook too. The person who had taken the trouble to prebook where they wanted to sit was told to “sit somewhere else”. More to the point, someone was sat in it who refused to move. There, someone recalled how their son had gone to the cinema, prebooked the seat, and when they got there, someone was sat it. ![]() The second instance was a letter read out on the Kermode & Mayo film programme, on Radio Five Alive last Friday. I wanted it noted I still didn’t talk through the film. For me, it happened at the Showcase Liverpool, for a screening of The Peacemaker back in the late 1990s. Most of us have the odd experience too where we were the only ones in the cinema. Conversely, a Monday morning screening of a film that’s been out a few weeks might struggle to attract more than a couple of people. The opening of a Star Wars film, there might be a fair few sold out showings. Inevitably, there are swings and roundabouts to this, as it is an average. That the vast majority of the time, there’s no shortage of empty seats, leading me to wonder about the merits of a blanket allocated seat policy for every performance. To translate that from non-marketing speak, it means that on average, screens are 15% full. Firstly, an anecdotal discussion I had with someone in the cinema industry, who casually remarked that the average occupancy rate that UK cinemas aim for is around the 15-20% mark. Others are happy to rock up and sit where there’s space, and don’t want the faff of trying to find J16.Ī couple of things brought this issue back to the forefront of my mind over the last week. On the one hand, some like having the foreknowledge of having a prebooked seat. And it’d fair to say it’s an issue that splits the proverbial crowd. When we ran our annual survey of your thoughts on British cinema habits, the big jump in grumbles over the previous one was over reserved seats. Is allocated seating in the cinema a good thing? And why, if it exists, was there nobody there to enforce it? Why was it left to the customers to deal with the someone-else-in-my-seat problem? Also, how tricky is it to a) sit in your allocated seat and b) quickly move if for some reason you’ve ended up in the wrong seat? A happy ending.Ī happy ending with questions, though. Eventually he moved, graciously I should add.
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