A movie audience wearing special 3D glasses. Photo / Getty
By Andrew Bucklow.
OPINION: Going to the cinema used to be a fun, stress-free way to spend a couple of hours. And then along came the policy of assigned seating.
I detest being allocated a seat. I loathe it. It is THE WORST thing that's happened to cinemas since they stopped selling Kool Fruits in tins at the candy bar.
Why? I'm so glad you asked.
Firstly, I'm a wuss. I cannot handle confrontation. On so many occasions I've walked into a cinema clutching my ticket with my assigned seat number printed on it only to find someone else sitting in my seat. Do I say anything?
Never.
Instead I bow my head, find another empty seat and wait anxiously for the inevitable showdown when someone comes along and tells me I'm sitting in their seat.
If that happens I'm still not man enough to tell the person sitting in my original seat that it's my bloody seat. So I move to another empty seat and the clock restarts on another awkward game of 'You're not where you're meant to be'.
This continues at least 15 minutes into the movie as I sit there on the edge of my seat for all the wrong reasons, paranoid that someone's going to rock up late and out me as 'that guy'.
My other big issue with assigned seating is how closely they seem to group people together.
The cinema can be relatively empty but thanks to this infuriating policy I often find myself sitting right next to a stranger.
I'll never forget the time when my assigned seat in a virtually empty session put me right next to a seven-year-old kid whose mum was sitting next to her. The concerned mother shot me a look that I'll never forget and I could tell she was thinking, "What a creep". Admittedly, offering the kid one of my Maltesers didn't help but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
The policy of assigned seating has, for me, turned a trip to the cinema into a nerve-racking experience fraught with the potential for social awkwardness.
So why does the policy exist?
The CEO of Palace Cinemas, Benjamin Zeccola, was kind enough to explain the reasoning to me.
"It has come about as a result of an increase in online ticket purchases," Mr. Zeccola said.
"About half of our tickets are bought online and we think it's an additional service to offer to people who are booking ahead that they can choose their seats."
Mr. Zeccola added that assigned seating means people can trickle into the cinema when they want rather than having to rush inside to secure the best seats.
"We think it's better from a customer experience point of view also that people feel relaxed to arrive at the venue in their own time, to sit at the bar and have a drink in a relaxed way and then enter the cinema knowing that they've got their seat allocated rather than having to queue up at the front of the door," he said.
"Without allocated seating there can often be a choke point where you've got 100 people waiting to go in and 100 people trying to get out at the same time. Without allocated seating everyone hangs around the entry door and then elbows their way in which is not a great experience."
It turns out I'm not the only one who despises the policy, but I am in the minority according to Mr. Zeccola.
"I think it's probably 60/40 in favour of it," he said when asked about the feedback from Palace Cinema customers.
"They're two different points of view and they're both valid but we've instituted a policy that better matches the way tickets are bought now versus 20 years ago."
And he even had some advice for a wuss like me about what to do if someone's sitting in my seat.
"Absolutely the best thing to do is to talk to an usher," Mr. Zeccola said.
"There should be an usher at the door or nearby to ensure that anyone who does inadvertently take the wrong seat can quickly find the correct seat."
Let's be honest, I'm probably not going to do that either because I ain't no snitch.
Thanks to Mr. Zeccola I understand why cinemas have a policy of assigned seating, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, and I REALLY don't like it.
Rant over.
The Australian site cited a 'heightened threat level' as the issue.