During the first few minutes of the movie, I noticed that there were many groups of teenagers, with 5 or 6 in each group, that would all get up and move around, and walk in and out fairly often. The auditorium was originally a standard seating type that was converted to stadium seating by building a walkway behind and on the sides of the stadium section. The rear auditorium seats not at the rear auditorium wall, but are 5 or 6 feet away, with a ledge behind the seats. If you look over the ledge, you can look down into the walkway. Teenagers have found that, as they walk in, if they bang on the walls of the structure that holds the stadium section, it makes a really loud noise, and several groups of teenagers did this as they went in and out.

Another thing I noticed was that an usher was in the auditorium the entire time watching the kids and making them behave and turn off cell phones, etc. This was the first time I'd ever seen an usher have to stay in the entire show. The ushers were doing a very good job at keeping things in order.

I was sitting in the center of the rear stadium row, mainly because nobody could kick the back of the seat and there is more legroom there between that row and the row in front of it. About 30 or 40 minutes into the show, a bunch of liquid came from above and behind me, hitting me and 7 or 8 more people near me. Someone had thrown a Coke from the walkway over the rear wall of the stadium section. Several others and I went out there to try to figure out who had done it, but whoever did it went out the door and were not seen by the staff outside. The person who threw the drink could have been someone that was in the theatre and did it as they went out, or it could have been someone who came in the auditorium door, threw it, and ran back out.

I went back in and sat in a different place and a few minutes later, the manager was standing behind me, so I went back and told her all about what had happened and what all the groups of teenagers had been doing. We went outside the auditorium and talked for a while about that and a lot of different things (projection equipment, movies, history of theatres in the area). I enjoyed my talk with her more than I did the movie. She got me a pass. Anyway, it turns out that there were two ushers in there plus one security person "babysitting" them. She said they had a lot of problems like this on Friday nights.

This was my 362nd visit to the theatres in my area and I'd never seen an audience like this one. These groups of teenagers weren't just rowdy and having fun -- they were true troublemakers, getting their kicks out of annoying people. The one that threw that drink over the rear stadium seating wall is a really dangerous one that needs to be caught. If he'll do that, he would do other more dangerous things to see if he could get away with it. There was one teenager in the lobby that one staff member pointed out that had been in trouble for throwing Cokes in another auditorium a few months earlier, but they could not say that he threw this one in #10 because nobody saw him.

Do any of you have frequent problems of this degree in the theatres that you run? I'm not talking about groups that talk or wiggle about a lot (that's normal for many teenagers) -- I'm talking about ones with a mean streak that want to annoy everyone. How do you deal with them and prevent them from being a problem?

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

If I was the manager at that theatre, I would instruct my staff people to first warn them to behave. If that fails, those bastards should be kicked out of the theatre! If the staff suspect one or more of these trouble makers might become violent, the manager of the theatre should call the police first and let them handle the situation.

This seemed to prove that they had no interest in the movie, it was just something to do, and they got their kicks out of either giving us, or our other patrons a hard time. We would normally get 50 to 150 teens every week for that show regardless of what we played. Once that group got up and left, we had no problems with the ones that remained. I think they were just as glad that the others had left as we were. Of course other people complained about them, and we did everything that we could to keep order, but it was impossible for several staff members to control fifty or more unruly teens. As a matter of fact, I would tell my patrons that there was only so much we could do, and that the best thing for them was to attend any other show during the week except the 7 PM Friday show. There was never a problem during any other show, except for maybe a Sat or Sun matinee, but those were little kids that didn't know any better.

We no longer have this problem, or at least it is something that happens very very seldom, and we haven't had the problem for over five years now. How did we solve our problem? Two things happened. First we made it known that those teens were not welcome. That helped a slight bit, but was not the final solution. We also raised our prices. We had been a dollar house, and therefore the teens didn't feel that they lost anything of real value when they were thrown out or left on their own. The rise to $3.00 made it somewhat less attractive to lose the money. However, the real solution was done for us. It was done by Regal, Carmike, and Hoyts. All three of them built major multi and mega plexes in our area. Keep in mind that we are a moveover run single screen theatre. Why did the building of those plexes change things when we had numerous multis in the area before and it didn't seem to matter? The teens were drawn to the new plexes for several reasons. Was it the large selection of films? No, as they could have had a large selection before in the six to eight plexes that had been around for many years. Was it the even higher prices being charged at the new theatres? Of course not, that would make no sense at all. Was it the stadium seating and digital sound? Maybe for some, but that still isn't the real reason. So what was the reason? It is the design and layout and admission policies of the new megaplexes. What do I mean by that? First of all, remember that at a single screen theatre the only reason to go is to see the movie. Sure some might have some video games in the lobby, but I don't. You buy a ticket and have it collected before you enter the lobby in a single screen theatre. In mega plexes (at least in our area)you buy your ticket and enter the lobby but don't give it to a ticket taker until either you enter the hallway going to the auditoriums or at the entrance of the proper auditorium itself. The theatre lobby has become a public space. It has many video games, usually a video room attached, and a large refreshment center, sometimes with national fast food outlets, along with tables and chairs where you can sit down to eat. It has video screens showing trailers of upcoming films. It has in fact become a FREE gathering place for teens to socialize in. They need not buy a ticket to enter. They meet there in small and large groups, have something to eat or drink, play video games or just sit around and talk, and then decide what movie to see if any at all. If they decide not to see a film it hasn't cost them anything other then the games or refreshments if indeed they had that. The new megaplexes have become the social nucleus for teenagers. The plexes have what the teens want, and that is good. Good riddance.

Of course shortly after the new plexes were built we saw a sizeable drop in attendence. That was not good. BUT... our problems with unruly teens disappeared almost overnight because they were the patrons that disappeared. And guess what? It didn't take long for people to realize they were gone, and our adult patronage increased. Especially our senior citizen admissions, which now make up as much as 50% of our patronage. After losing the teens we changed our booking policy, and stopped playing films of interest to them (no Austin Powers here), and started bringing in more semi art product. We now do very well again without the teens, and our new audience love having a place free of them. And my hair isn't getting gray anymore.

Of course this doesn't address how to deal with those problems in a megaplex, but both myself and my patrons are glad that the problem has moved there. This is another good reason for keeping a few single screen houses around. Maybe the singles could cash in by putting in there ads "Teen Free Zone".

There were incidents such as kids trying to light things on fire, sticking gum on the port glass, messing with the work lights during the show, dumping popcorn off of the stadium seating onto entering patrons, throwing sodas, and worst of all: spraying the fire extinguisher into the audience!!

The officers would regularly walk the theaters, never in any set time pattern so as not to make people think, "He just left, so we have 10 minutes to goof off!" and this worked rather well to control most problems.

For a while, one of the officers would sometimes come up to the booth and look through the port glass so he could get a view of the entire audience without being seen himself. After he tripped over the film going to the platter and caused the shows to stop several times, the GM put a stop to it.

I personally try to avoid evening weekend shows of those movies to avoid rowdy crowds unless the experience would enhance the movie. (i.e. a really BAD movie that is itching to be heckled)

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The Reading Cinemas in Manville NJ doesn't seem to have this problem since the theater draws mostly families and adults -- and the police station is only 1,000 feet away. OTOH if a movie has strong teen appeal (say, The Fast and the Furious) I don't go opening night.

I've seen a good number of instances of piggish behavior in movie theaters (seat upholstrey slashed and cigarette burned, armrests ripped off, candy and soda slung onto the screen). All of it needs to be severely punished.

Post a few very large uniformed guards in the theatre during the show to enforce the rules strictly. I bet they wouldn't cost you more than 5-10 admissions. After that either those kids won't bother to come anymore or they'll keep quiet.

Also, I'd think raising prices for that 7pm show is a good idea.

I don't know if it's still there, but there was a small multiplex in the Union Station terminal in Washington, DC. Their policy was that if you talk even once during the film, they would throw you out. I thought this was a bit of overkill, but it worked.

quote:

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Evans: Have you brought up your problem with the Huntsville police? If they get a bunch of complaints like yours the police should assign uniformed cops with marked patrol cars for crowd control Friday and Saturday nights.

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No, I think the theatre staff is putting an honest effort into trying to solve this problem. The manager knows that I run a WWW site that many people read, and that comments about that type of activity would reflect negatively on the theatre. I told her that since this was the first time anything like this had ever happened, and since I was offered a couple of passes (and took one since I'd already missed 10 minutes of the movie at that point), I would not write about getting splashed with Coke on the WWW site this time. This manager is very friendly and nice, and I saw plenty of evidence of ushers putting great effort into making people behave in there. I will attend this theatre again for some Friday night 7ish showings to see if these types of things happen again. If there are problems like this occurring frequently, I will write about them on my WWW site.

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Anyone caught vandalizing theater property should be arrested, made to pay for the damages and never be allowed on the premises again (and emptying a fire extinguisher into the audience is vandalism).

So much so that 'many' audience members had to tell them to be quite. This was at the Odeon, Leicester Square in London, so there were about 8-9 Ushers in the room that did little or nothing. I went to this theatre to escape noisy crowds - big, expensive mistake (tickets were £10).

I've yet to see a cinema kick unruly patrons out - It's never happened, if I was aware of a cinema that did that - I would without doubt be there number one customer.