Cast your mind back to the opening weekend of DreamWorks’ colour explosion, Trolls. It’s a decent enough film, that I never have much urge to rewatch, but my offspring do. The news that Trolls 2 is on the way was greeted with some joy by them too. The problem – and you can see where this is heading – is that when we went to take our seats, there was someone in them. It turned you a young man had decided to bring his girlfriend on a date to see Trolls at 2.30pm on a Sunday in a screen full of kids. His choice, clearly. But he was adamant he was in the right seat. Not wishing to embarrass him on date nigh… afternoon, I patiently explained that we’d specifically booked that seat for fear of my three year old going walkies. Eventually he moved, graciously I should add. A happy ending. 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. And it’d fair to say it’s an issue that splits the proverbial crowd. On the one hand, some like having the foreknowledge of having a prebooked seat. Others are happy to rock up and sit where there’s space, and don’t want the faff of trying to find J16. A couple of things brought this issue back to the forefront of my mind over the last week. 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. To translate that from non-marketing speak, it means that on average, screens are 15% full. 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. The second instance was a letter read out on the Kermode & Mayo film programme, on Radio Five Alive last Friday. There, someone recalled how their son had gone to the cinema, prebooked the seat, and when they got there, someone was sat it. More to the point, someone was sat in it who refused to move. The person who had taken the trouble to prebook where they wanted to sit was told to “sit somewhere else”. And that, to me, is the dividing line on reserved seating. In theory, the principal behind the idea is sound, and it certainly favours those who prebook too. That you can get the seat you want, you know where you’re going, and you know that your party can all sit together. For those with limited mobility but who aren’t in a wheelchair, reserved seating can also be a godsend. Likewise, those who are hard of hearing may favour a particular spot to get the most out of the feature concerned. However: allocated seating can’t work if people don’t sit in the allocated seat. Can’t work if those who sit in the wrong seat refuse to move. And can’t work if – here it comes – there’s nobody there to enforce it. The cinema remains a leisure activity. For many of us, at the end of a long day, it’s a treat. 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. I love the cinema, and remain convinced that it, by distance, is the best place to see a film. Wherever you stand on allocated seating, it’s surely pointless if the cinema itself doesn’t enforce it. It was the point ultimate made on the Kermode & Mayo show, and I think that’s bang on. 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. We joke often about being British, but once you’ve been snarled at for asking someone to move, it can be intimidating, uncomfortable and ruin the whole visit for you. Heck, it’s nearly 20 years since I asked a group of teenagers to be quiet during American Pie, to be told in no uncertain terms that they’d be waiting for me in the car park to discuss the matter further. Happy days. Who wants that on what’s supported to be a fun evening out? Back to seating. There are exceptions, of course. In a 95% empty screen, it’s almost become sport to see people duck into the luxury seats as soon as the lights go down. Furthermore, with no usher, if you do want to skip the ads, you’re often walking into a pitch-black screen with no idea where row CC actually is, yet alone which side of the screen seat 17 is (although my local Empire, thoughtfully, has a map). Shining a bright torch is arguably worse than slipping into one of many empty seats in that instance.
