R. Hunt writes:

>The posting regarding incorrect ticket stubs raises some serious issues, but
>requires a little more research before any conclusion can be drawn. I
>remember when Spike Lee made the accusation that theatres were giving patrons
>who paid to see "Malcolm X" ticket stubs for "Home Alone".  As a former
>theatre manager, I thought  at the time that this was unlikely...Why should a
>theatre that's showing both movies care whether the money is going to 20th
>Century Fox rather than Warner Brothers?... But it would be interesting to
>see if this sort of thing if being done systematically since I also know from
>experience that theatre employees aren't always all that careful about
>tickets and such...

That's not just the only issue.  Booking office computers are often
programmed weeks in advance in order to allow customers make advance
bookings.  Because seats are numbered, films have to be assigned to
specific auditoria often without the slightest knowledge of how well (or
otherwise) they'll do.  Example: the opening week of the new cinema I work
at originally had BRINGING OUT THE DEAD scheduled in screen 1 and THE
DARKEST LIGHT in two.  Because Scorcese flopped and THE DARKEST LIGHT
(pronably because of Yorkshire local interest) proved unexpectedly popular,
we swapped them in order to meet customer demand.

Howeve, the computers could not be reprogrammed because advance sales had
already been made.  In order to ensure that we didn't sell more tickets for
a performance than there were seats in the screen, customers going in to
see one film had the title of the other printed on their ticket, and it
caused no end of confusion, not least for the front of house staff.  We had
to compile the figures for the distributor returns by hand, but there was
no question of sending the figures for the wrong film.

L

------------------------------------
Leo Enticknap
Technical Manager
City Screen Cinemas (York) Ltd..
Coney St., York YO1 9QL.
United Kingdom
Telephone: 01904 612940 (work); 01904 673207 (home); 0410 417383 (mobile)
e-mail: [log in to unmask]

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