What's so hard about being on time?

A week or so ago, we had a patron come out and complain that the movie was supposed to start 5 minutes ago, and that being late was "very bad business practice."

Now I wasn't able to properly address the issue at the time, so I'll take this post to do so in a much more carefully constructed manner than would have been possible on the spot.

See, we don't show trailers before the start of the movie.  Amazing, I know.  Nobody like the trailers, right?

"But why don't you show trailers," you may ask.  See, having only two screens makes us a small theater.  This means there's a high likelihood that we won't be showing the films advertised in the trailers.  It's only logical, then, that we wouldn't show trailers to movies we aren't going to have, since doing so would just send you to a different theater.  Make sense?  Good.

But this is a hard concept to grasp for most people, since they're conditioned to expect trailers and always show up late to the movie.  And when everyone shows up late, we have to start the movie late.

On the particular day in question, it was on a Saturday at 7:15, our busiest showtime.  This meant a line of people almost out the door.  Our job is to get everyone processed and in their seats so everyone can enjoy the full movie with minimal interruption.  And with only 3 people, that can occasionally be challenging.

Five minutes after the scheduled start of the movie, a woman came out and told us that the movie hadn't started yet.  We explained to her very calmly (while at the same time schlepping beer and wine to the line of patiently waiting people) that it's our policy to typically start 5 to 10 minutes late to get everyone into the theater.

"Well that's a very bad business practice!" she said, then going on some rant about how you can't keep people waiting like that.

Seriously, woman?  You can't sit an extra 5 minutes for a movie with no trailers during our busiest time of the week?  And did you not see the huge-ass line of people waiting to be served just like you were only moments ago?  We even gave you a drink and play music through the speakers to keep you occupied!  What's wrong? Is your bladder set to go off at a specific time determined by the rotation of atoms relative to planetary alignments?

And by the way, it's very good business practice to start a little late.  You have no idea how many people are relieved when they find out they haven't missed the movie.

And at the end of the day, we had a theater full of happy patrons who were glad we waited so they could all watch the whole movie, trailer-free.  And since we waited for everyone to be situated, there were no bothersome interruptions by people who came in 5 minutes into the movie. That's worth the wait, in my opinion.