This week we switched back. We have a few people who thought we still had 12:00 shows and showed up for them. Most were understanding, but a few were downright hostile about our changing the show times. They would spout things like "Why did you do that? NO other theatre changes their show times!" "How do you expect us to know when the shows are if you willy nilly change the show times?" "No other theatre changes their show times on Friday!" "There should be public notification when you change you show times?"

That last one was my favorite because my cashier held up today’s paper and said, "Like this ad we place every day in the newspaper?" I was so proud.

Now I am not totally impressed because we have 50 or 60 people in the auditoriums that got the times right.

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Our first show is normally at 9.30 or 9.45 AM followed by 10.00, 10.15 and 10.30. This is everyday of the week

Our owner figures that he will be there as will a cashier, why let the cinemas sit empty all day when you could have some paying customers. These early morning shows are very popular with housewives who have just dropped the kids off at school and retired people.

It is very rare for us to have the same movie at the same time for 2 days in a row so the customers really need to check our ads or flyers.

My favourite customer for the day was an old lady who came up to the boxoffice and started to complain because she had booked her seats and the usher told her it was not actually reserved. She was so mad she was shaking, she particularly wanted the back seats for her 3 (also elderly) friends. I told her that there would be heaps of seats as only 40 had been sold but she wanted HER reserved seats. What can you do? Nothing, except tell the usher to show the lady some seats in one of the three EMPTY back rows and say that those are the seats she requested.

On the marquee
In the front window
In two different newspapers
On a cable-tv sports channel (in a neighboring town)
On the radio (usually)
On our own website
On hollywood.com
In our weekly e-mail
On our phone system (regular and toll-free numbers)

"Is this film only 45 minutes long?!?"

or confusion from odd titles, like the porno film "Misty Beethoven" where a darling little senior citizen woman came up to our box office limping on her cane, and sweetly and shyly asked for a ticket to see "Mister Beethoven."...

But I'd have to say the stupidist showtime question I've heard of isn't even a question.

The Miami Herald time clock started losing theatres well over a year ago, in 1999. One of the theatres that closed was a little 4plex conversion with no chance of ever reopening. The owner, ever hopeful, requested the Herald slug it as "Closed until January 2000, call theatre for showtimes."

Some brilliant employee of the Herald regularly continues placing this slug, so new readers looking for movies are confronted with the option of visiting a theatre closed "until January 2000" long after January and any evidence of a theatre have passed.

BTW, I'm fairly sure this theatre was in Palm Beach County, and we all know how confused people get there. I'd bet some folks show up to see what's not playing.

When I worked at the Orpheum which is a restored 1935 art deco picture palace, we had little plastic clocks with a real clock face made up and would place them beside the name of the film on the sign above the box office.

Soooooo many (young) people complained that they couldn't understand those times and why didn't we get REAL 'digital' clocks?

Sheesh!

What on earth do they teach kids in school, anyway if they don't teach them how to tell the time?

The Orpheum has a pretty sucky website, but you get the idea at http://www.orpheum.com.au/ . The new cinemas 1 and 2 I had nothing to do with. And from the looks of them...that can only be a good thing.

Hey! Cinema one has 'SR' stereo!

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