Movie Theaters: The New Airline Industry

Anyone else have recent Movie Theater Bloopers? Well, here's a doosey.

The last time we went on a date, the theaters were sold out for Indiana Jones. The newest factor in our lives, a beautiful little person, has made date nights so much more necessary and precious, at least for a new mommy. With a babysitter on hourly pay, we can't be flexible and decide to go to the "later" showing. The "later" showing is 11:30pm, putting us in the theater until 12:40am, and not home until after 1:00am. This time, I went (with baby in tow) to pre-purchase the tickets at noon for an 8:15 showing. Having left baby with the babysitter, we avoided the "SOLD OUT" spoil and the excessive previews by arriving 5 minutes late. Unfortunately, there was only one seat left open in the entire theater of 175 seats.

We high-tailed it back to the Customer Service desk, and relayed the situation. When the guy behind the counter simply smiled and said, "I can get you a ticket for a later showing or give you a refund," our date was over in my eyes. My loving husband saw my hopes dashed and said to me, "They can't do anything else." My reply was, "Well, they could do something else, but they're not going to stop the movie and check everyone's tickets to make sure no one is theater-hopping." (My new suspicion is that AMC is doing the airline industry boogie and theater-hopping people to later showings despite the theaters already being sold out.) The manager overheard my desperation and called over another employee. She took us back to the theater since the manager thought she would be able to find something. She walked up and down every aisle and found only one open seat. She smiled and said, "There is only one seat left." I replied, "This is a bummer! We bought our tickets this morning." My husband had the genius idea that the theater could give us wheelchairs, and we'd go in the handicap seating. She smiled and said, "We can't do that." Then, he suggested chairs be placed in those spaces for us. Again, smile and "no." I suggested we sit in those space. "No... fire code violation." Being the stubborn new mom desperate for a date, I sat down in the handicap spot and let my husband sort it out. He and the employee disappeared, and shortly thereafter, another employee came in with a mother and her child. They too could not find seats. The mother settled for the solo seat remaining and stuck the kid on her lap. Hello? Fire code violation? At this point I realize that either 3 people were theater-hopping, or AMC had oversold their seats.

In the end, my husband returned with a refund and complimentary tickets to another show any time. I remained unbelievably stubborn as this was the second time a date was ruined by oversold theaters. My husband said it was a big risk, but no one escorted him back, so we could stay until they threw us out. I responded, "What can they do to us? Throw us out?" It was going to happen anyways, so I fell in love with Wall-E for 30 minutes... and then we got kicked out. This fellow romantic, "Hello, Dolly!"-loving robot is my new friend.

For another week, these new parents made attempts at going to see Wall-E again. We had a friend babysit on Sunday afternoon, guessing that despite the 4th of July weekend, the theater probably wouldn't be even half full. Wrong again. We walked in, this time 5 minutes early, and the theater was packed. My response was, "Oh, this is wrong." The employee standing in the theater this time to make sure people got seating, turned to help us, but really didn't do anything except turn his head a few times and "pretend" to look. I went the assertive route, walked up to the top of the stadium seating theater of 175 seats, and asked 5 people to move over 1 seat so my husband and I could sit together. It was a funny circumstance asking 2 kids with nachos and sodas on their laps to move. Messy is a word. Wall-E is a great movie with very obvious messages about littering the earth, obesity causing serious complacency, machines' inability to re-evaluate situations based on new information, and most importantly enjoying life means getting up off your butt and moving.

In regards to my experience as a new mother, holding on to every possible date with my husband, that was the final straw. Last night the AMC Tyson's Theater made its way onto my Boo-Hiss List.

I walk away with quite a lot of realizations:
1- buy movie tickets from fandango.com or movietickets.com to save gas and ensure you have a ticket for the show you want to see
2- arrive 20 minutes before the showing or don't go at all
3- the theater industry, or AMC, or just the management at Tyson's AMC has decided to do the airline boogie in which they compromise selling tickets to online companies like hotwire or gorilla or 1800tickets by overselling the plane. The fine print reads that e-ticket holders will be seated "as available." Tyson's AMC is either selling out and the "later show" people get to keep going to "later showings" or there is a very poor regulation of theater hopping.
4- Whoever decided that "Wall-E" was going to be less popular than "Wanted" was wrong. "Wall-E" grossed $11.4 million over "Wanted," but the Tyson's AMC reserved both 500-seat auditoriums for "Wanted." AMC refused to make room for the G-rated crowds to accomodate the R-rated crowds.

Either they need new management, or the AMC company needs to address some serious concerns. If this is the future of movie-going, our weekly date nights are going to change. I'm going to write an op-ed on this lastest adventure. I'll report on it if it's published at all.