So yesterday I posted about the idea to allow the horrible seats upfront in the theater to sell for slightly cheaper once 75% of the other seats have been sold. The discussion in the comments section has been fantastic, and you guys have made me change my mind to a specific seating strategy.
So the new system that we’re proposing here (apparently one that is already widely used in Europe) would be like concert or Sporting event tickets. You buy a ticket for a specific seat (ie. Your ticket is for seat 4M).
Here is what I see as some of the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy (some of these are taken from your comments in the previous post).
ADVANTAGES
1) No need to show up an hour early in line to make sure you get a decent seat. You’d already know what seat you’re getting.
2) No having to save seats for friends showing up a little latter (I HATE HATE HATE doing that).
3) Theaters can then just keep all the tickets the same price. If a theater is filling up… then that means its a hot ticket and no need to reduce the price.
4) Adults going with a group of kids can ensure that they get seats all together (same thing goes with groups of friends going).
DISADVANTAGES
1) Theater chains will have to upgrade their ticket sales systems. I’m sure the cost of that process will be passed on to us.
2) Many people will (like Doug suggested) use this system to show up AFTER the commercials. Theaters know that… and would probably either increase the commercial times to catch us… or increase ticket prices to make up for lost commercial revenue.
Ok, that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. How does this sound to you guys? What are some of the advantages or disadvantages I’ve missed here? Do you think any of the ones I’ve listed are incorrect?
