Are you fed up with rude movie patrons? A major theater group is offering a way to tattle on them.
The Regal Entertainment Group has been testing small hand-held devices called “Guest Response Systems.” Selected patrons can use them anonymously to page management when there’s a specific problem.
The GRS’s are wireless and have four buttons marked “picture,” “sound,” “piracy” and “other disturbance.”
Company spokesman Dick Westerling said they have been used to report audio or video problems or to tell on someone who is illegally taping the movie. But he said most complaints have to do with loud talking and cell phone use.
Westerling said the Guest Response System seems to be improving “customer etiquette” in the 13 theaters where they’ve been since last summer. Now, he said, the company is adding them in 101 more locations.
I guess they ought to call it the snitch control.
So a gizmo the theatre pays for, won’t come back?
Real smart.
But this guy, Mr. Speaker, is way smarter. // Ironic
http://tinyurl.com/23rrlz
I can just imagine the next Sunday BBQ with the in-laws.
How can a lawyer be so obtuse and lacking such common sense.
Who’s going to pay that medical bill? FARK is going to have a field day with this guy.
… tell on someone who is illegally taping the movie.
I wonder how I can can get a permit to legally taping a movie…
where’s the button to bring me more popcorn?
Yeah if they expanded this for aisle food service, that would be nice. Being able to complain about sound and picture right away is good, though that only happens one out of 10 times.
Still, being able to make assholes shut off their phones and keep it down by anonymously pressing a button is a great thing. And they have said that it has improved behavior already wherever it was installed, so it does work.
Though the Piracy button does seem a bit excessive…
A well placed obcenity does the job just as well, espcially with kids. Technology can’t replace “STFU”.
They wouldn’t need a button for picture and sound if Projectionist were still a union job.
Why not use that time proven low tech solution… the Usher?
9. I want a fucking Taser included with that for the cell phone assholes, seat kickers and loudmouths.
Where’s the SCREAMING CHILD button?
J/P=?
10. That too, oh and please one for the airlines, those flights from Dallas to Puerto Rico are insane.
I agree with #8.
An usher with a flashlight worked perfectly for 60 years.
I have already given up. I go to the movies maybe 3-4 times a year, down from nearly every weekend a few years ago.
The courteous little clip they play before the movie asking people to please refrain from using phones or talking should be changed to something uncensored and starring Lewis Black.
#8 – I totally understand the economics of running a movie theater so I understand what the staffing issues they face actually are, so this isn’t an attack on them… but they frankly can’t staff up enough to be effective.
90% of the box goes back to the distributor in the first weeks of release of a movie and it scales back slowly over the course of a release, but most releases don’t last long, so theaters live on the highly priced consession stands. Consider the cost of air condistioning 12 warehouses and a massive airplane hanger of a lobby, and running 12 massive projectors, not to mention that nacho maker and popcorn machine… Pluse water in about 100 toilets and 25 sinks…
It’s hard to run a theater and more ushers are a luxury.
But of course, so is this stupid usher pager system 🙂
If there are no ushers, who in hell does it page?
#14 – Stormtroopers? The Highway Patrol? The FBI? The Boy Scouts?
This is why I don’t go to the movies. I’ll just stick to downloading them from the Internet.
Just a tip. If you HAVE to go to a movie, buy one of those big $20 Cokes and “spill” it on the seat in front of you so some nappy headed ho or a turd burglar won’t sit in front of you.
Sitting in the back and “lobbing” a large Coke at the offending party has merit as well. This can get quite expensive however for repeat offenses.
I got disgusted with movie theaters many years ago. The last movie I saw at a theater was Apocalypse Now. I enjoy movies on a 65″ HD with 5.2 audio.