Get your grousing caps on: The Alamo Drafthouse is banning late seating.
Change is afoot at the ever-growing Drafthouse enterprise; this announcement comes hot on the heels of a recent, somewhat controversial decision to move to assigned seating. A Nov. 6 blog post laid it all out:
“We are very excited to announce the rollout of a new solution designed to minimize distractions and make the moviegoing experience as pleasant as possible. …
Quite simply, no one will be seated once the film has begun. If you show up after the feature starts, you have missed it. The plane has left the terminal. If you bought in advance we can apply your ticket to another show or refund your money but you will not be admitted into the theater.”
The Alamo’s comment boards and social media lit up with both huzzahs and boos, with some patrons applauding the effort to create an ideal viewing environment and others complaining the Drafthouse was getting entirely too controlling for their tastes.
The new policy won’t go into effect until Jan. 3. However, the Drafthouse warns, “We will begin educating our customers immediately.” Given the company’s long and cherished history of recruiting celebs for their instructional videos on no talking, no texting, and the like, we’re now eagerly anticipating, say, Joseph Gordon-Levitt rocking’ a dominatrix whip to school us all on the change. Yep: We’d happily show up early for that.
This article appears in November 2 • 2012.
