We went to the Dendy last night – bought tix as usual and wandered in and sat down where we like and the movie started….. then was asked to move by some people who said that they had the seats reserved.
Lots of commotion – not just us but others were moving as well for the same reasons. We discovered that the seats we had bought were for specific seats in part of the cinema that isn’t my favourite.
How long has this reserved seat thing been happening? In my 50 years of going to the movies in Australia I have never encountered this before – it’s always been “first in, best dressed”
So tell me either that I’m an old fart and I had better get used to it, or that the Dendy have got it wrong and most people want to sit where they want to and arriving first lets you do that.
[ED – Or maybe they should have told you the seating was allocated when you paid for the tickets and had an usher shown you to your seats?]
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I would rather sit in my allocated Dendy seat, among razor blades, ablaze and seated next ‘that really annoying person you know from work’ than to have my choice of seats in any Hoyts establishment.
Went to “District 9” today (great movie, incidentally) and it was the worst of both worlds: they had moved it from one of the small cinemas into a larger one, and in the process lost all of the allocations.
Worked out well for the dozen of us who had booked ahead and still arrived early (they let us in before everyone else), but I feel rather sorry for any poor bastards who came in late — why stress to get there early if you’ve got a seat waiting? — to find a full house and no reserved seats.
canberra_gal said :
Move with the times? Allocated seating is a quaint custom from my childhood complete with cobwebs, ushers and torches. How is moving from choice to no choice progress?
Online booking most certainly does not solve the problem. Online booking doesn’t tell you that you will be sitting behind the six foot two basketball player.
If you are interested in the reasoning behind it from what I understand they aren’t cup holders but were intended to be bottle (champagne/wine) holders. Unfortunately, Dendy couldn’t get the type of liquor licence that would let them sell whole bottles at a time and can instead only sell by the glass.
hk0reduck said :
That was a stupid design decision, especially when the rest of it was done fairly well.
Granny: I’m pretty sure if you go in and the movie has already started and it’s nearly empty, you can probably move and nobody will care.
Granny said :
Allright then! Don’t get you bloomers in a twist. I’m sure if you booked seat and were in an empty cinema you could take a chance and spread out to a more secluded area for some canoodling no problems, although that could be a bit awkward if someone arrives late with a ‘Ahem, I belive this is our seat’.
Oh and, I believe that its only allocated seating in all cinemas after 5pm weekdays and all weekend.
I first came across allocated cinema seating in London in 2000… and I thought it was a fantastic idea! I’m so glad that I don’t have to pay $30 (ie. premium cinema) to get allocated seating at Dendy.
All you naysayers – move with the times!!!
AngryHenry said :
Everyone has their own preferences. Some people don’t like to walk into a near empty cinema and be stuck in horrible seats with people chatting behind them. The cinema is always practically empty late at night. Those who wish to book online are free to do so, and those who prefer to decide on the spur of the moment can go to Hoyts where they did away with allocated seating with the dinosaurs.
I used to work at a Hoyts in a previous life, my guess is the reason why they are doing this is to cut down on queueing. Having crowds of people hanging around was the most difficult aspect of being the ticket ripper. Luckily at my Hoyts, the building was designed in such a way that you had nice long natural queue areas. From my experience at Dendy, the place is NOT built to handle a crowd and the staff are too mincy and scared to properly handle it. The queuing is horrific (with the movie, box office, and candy bar queue’s colliding).
Personally I don’t really care about the allocated seating. It hasn’t particularly improved or ruined my experience when I’ve gone to Dendy. They’ve got signs upon signs upon signs explaining it but from my experience, you could slap someone in the face with a sign and they still would go ‘what? allocated seating?’.
I went to Cinema 1 one time and they had a staff in there telling people where to sit, but I haven’t seen that in the last couple of times I’ve gone.
Most likely, it will take a while for people to get used to it. I only noticed because I used to work at a cinema and as such happen to look at all the signs (due to a deep seated hatred of moron customers I don’t want to be one myself). It will either take on or it won’t. That’s probably up to the effort of the staff and keenness of Management (if it’s an idea from HQ that nobody at the cinema likes, it will be actively sabotaged/neglected. That’s what we did).
Incidentally, if you have aproblem like somebody sitting in your seat, go get the staff member. If you ask them to move people, they will. If they don’t, complain. You’ll prob get a refund or free tickets because they didn’t uphold their own policy.
People always used to complain to me about something after a movie finished. Not much I can do then guys.
Ultimately, as long as Hoyts and GU DON’T do it, people can go to which ever cinema suits them. I personally don’t care.
Woody Mann-Caruso said :
brilliant!
Granny said :
If it’s a regular thing, why not just book online and get the seats you want? Then you can grab some vino at the bar, take your time of it and enjoy the seats you so conveniently booked on the web…
I mean c’mon Granny, you’re online. Work that internet connection to it’s full potential.
We go to Dendy every second week and dislike the allocated seating. We probably will go to Hoyts if people start to enforce it.
hk0reduck said :
I didn’t see any ‘fat public servants’ at the sold out session of Transformers the other week or when I saw Terminator Salvation for that matter. I did see a few nerds and geeks though, along with a smattering of bogans.
I don’t take anything personally in this forum, I just can’t stomach unfounded arrogance.
Thank you for your response Woody, I am glad I am able to give you something to be passionate about 🙂
No, not everyone who uses the system is bastard but the person in this case definitely was.
I’m pretty sure restaurants have always worked in the same way so I go just fine. To me it was kind of like going to a cinema expecting a ‘take-away’ experience and unknowingly stepping into a restaurant where the people get pissed off at you for not knowing about it.
Anyway like I said, “I figure that despite my dislikes I’m just going to have to accept it :)” so the majority of your post while entertaining isn’t really applicable.
I maintain that it is still over-formalization of what should be a casual experience and your opinion differs to that. That’s fine 🙂
As for AngryHenry, I am pretty certain I am right about their target market. The Premium Lounge reminds me of the second half of Wall-E.
I also promise to try and get over myself if you try and not take things so personally said by a random guy on the internet hiding behind his internet persona 🙂
Sorry – you are a bit behind the times. Allocated seating rocks.
If you don’t like that system then there’s always Hoyts and Greater Union.
Most of the cinemas in Sydney and Melbourne are now reserved seating. I don’t rate it…so many times they put me in crap seat and when the movies start the good seats have no one in them or they put us near people when we would like to sit away from them.
vg said :
Who reads their tickets at the movies? Honestly?
Should be first in, best dressed in my opinion, always, that’s the tradition. It makes the wait more worth it.
MsCheeky said :
Something similar happened to me once. I sat down next to the couple (next to the chick) and let out a big, loud, squelchy fart. Then giggled.
They moved.