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Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 1:08 pm
by benj
Now that Frightfest has taken over the whole cinema complex, will any of the Discovery Screen films that free tickets went for very quickly be given additional screenings? I can't be the only person who missed out on one or two films they really wanted to see when booking tickets this morning.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 1:11 pm
by benj
(Apologies for the double post- not sure how that happened :( )

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 1:32 pm
by husky1
um there may be seats availble at the door as from what ive seen and heard some people have just booked out film wheather or not they want to see them

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 1:38 pm
by benj
Cheers for the suggestion but am not sure I'd want to leave it to chance like that, especially as it potentially means missing the start of your main screen film (i.e. fallback film) if there aren't any seats on the door :o

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 9:32 pm
by jonbly
...which brings us back to the annual question of whether or not the booking of a free Discovery screen ticket results in forfeiture of your Main screen seat. This year, it would appear that the cinema will have enough data, in time, to resell those Main screen tickets... and I for one can't see why they shouldn't.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 10:37 pm
by ian
jonbly wrote:...which brings us back to the annual question of whether or not the booking of a free Discovery screen ticket results in forfeiture of your Main screen seat. This year, it would appear that the cinema will have enough data, in time, to resell those Main screen tickets... and I for one can't see why they shouldn't.
i thought this earlier. there was a picture of email confirmations for someone who had ordered at least a dozen discovery tickets, and the first thing i thought was "so, thats an empty seat for at least half the festival"
not sure how many people are booking quite that many passes though, maybe it seems a bigger issue than it is due to this being the minority of - perhaps slightly more 'avid' - attendees who use the forum/facebook.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:12 pm
by husky1
you pay for the main screen seat its yours for the festival,comments saying if you go see a disco screen film you lose the seat is wrong, if people take seats payed for by someone else and continue to do so will be asked to,as in previous years leave, if you dont have a festiva, day pass or reserved seat go see a extra screening dont ruin it for the legitimate pwners of the seats

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:29 pm
by Commodore
I don't see why this is an annual question, as the answer has never changed. If you have a festival or day pass, that pass is tied to a specific seat. That seat is yours for the durtion of the festival/day of your day pass - irrespective of whether you are off watching a Disco screen, outside having a fag, in the lobby handing over your month's wages to the lovely people on the Arrow Video stall in exchange for DVDs and Blu-rays, having a cheeky pint, still in bed, jumping across rooftops fighting crime, eviscerating your enemies or taking luncheon in the all-you-can-eat oriental buffet.

You do not forefeit your main screen seat by not being in it - and never have in any previous year. If you do roll up late for a main screen movie (shame on you), you are perfectly entitled to politely turf out anyone sitting in your allotted seat as it is yours, not theirs.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:54 pm
by ChrisReynolds
A problem I have with this is with returns and swaps of discovery screen tickets.

For example this year, me and my friend have booked a series of Discovery Films together, but only one of us managed to get a ticket to Siren. Now I can wait and see if someone has a spare ticket to Siren, or give away the one ticket we have to someone else, or return it if we can't do either. If we had to give up our seats to be sold on to somebody else, returns wouldn't be possible, and we'd be locked into sitting in different screens.

If there was a few days window to return unwanted discovery tickets before selling your seat on I might be OK with it, but it means more work and complexity for the organisers.

I do hope screen 7 can be used to put on extra screenings for some of the sold out Discovery Films.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 8:07 pm
by benj
I can't help but feel this post I started has gone somewhat off track. Whilst we're here though, I guess the great thing about having a fixed seat in the main screen is that you don't need to have booked a film for that period to know you will have something to watch.

I still recall being new to Frightfest 5-6 years ago, having no idea what to see or avoid and so appreciated the option of not needing to research what to see and just trust I'd see quality, hand-picked selections by far more experienced and wise horror fans than myself (that being the FF organisers). I happily spent my first 2 years just sitting in the main screen before I risked venturing outside it and imagine this is how most newbies transition to weekend pass and eventually selecting their own discovery screen films themselves.

But I digress- it worries me there's been no official response to my original question about whether extra screenings of sold out discovery screen films.

I suspect this means I will have to pay more money just to see a film I could have seen for free had I been a bit quicker on the booking site. In fact, it worries me this might actually be FF's ultimate plan to sell more tickets. After all, we were sold in the new location with talk of how we were taking over the whole multiplex and yet none of the extra screens seem to be being put to use except for more paid-for screenings.

What I'm asking about isn't unheard of- I remember back when we were at the Empire and I managed to catch a late night last minute rescreening of Willow Creek due to demand to see it. If it was possible back then when we only had, what- 4 screens to play with, why does this not seem to be happening when we have 12?

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 10:31 pm
by DJBenz
I think you also have to remember: if there's a disco film you want to see, and you don't have/couldn't get a ticket, you could always try rocking up and seeing if there's any space available (obviously this may mean missing out on or arriving late to your main screen alternative in the unlikely event there isn't). From experience, the discovery screenings are almost never full to capacity (even when people book a ticket with the honest intentions of attending, their plans still may change) so it's always worth having a go.

Last year the only way I could get a ticket to one screening was to blag one off the PR people, and even then the screen wasn't packed out.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 11:56 pm
by jonbly
Commodore wrote:I don't see why this is an annual question, as the answer has never changed.
I'm asking it again because the situation's changed - the cinema now has lots of well-organised data in plenty of time to arrange for resale of the empty main screen seats. This hasn't been true before, because of the fly-by-night way Discovery seats have previously been allocated...

Reselling the main screen seats would have two major advantages -

1. More money for the festival organisers (noting that individual seats give them way more money than passes do), and
2. Fewer wasted Discovery seats.
benj wrote:I can't help but feel this post I started has gone somewhat off track.
Sorry about the partial derailment of the thread... but the notion of seats sitting empty because some idiots think they can be in two places at once really pisses me off.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 12:20 am
by sherbetbizarre
Problem is, if a group of you are in a row, would you really want a stranger turning up and sitting in the middle every other film?

One good thing about the weekend pass block at FF is feeling safe leaving your stuff by your seat all day, because you know and trust your neighbours.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 8:07 am
by Commodore
jonbly wrote:I'm asking it again because the situation's changed - the cinema now has lots of well-organised data in plenty of time to arrange for resale of the empty main screen seats. This hasn't been true before, because of the fly-by-night way Discovery seats have previously been allocated...
Let's not get carried away about the capabilities of the ticketing system - which is a third party platform that the Frightfest organisers contracted to handle sales, it has nothing to do with the cinema, and any data it holds about sales sits with it and the organisers - not VUE Cinemas.

Furthermore, there has been no massive leap forward in the main screen/disco screen ticketing process and capability - while the ticketing platform used has changed this year, the process is no different from last year, where your ownership of a day or festival pass enabled you to pre-book Disco screen seats ahead of time.

There was no built-in ability last year to prevent overbooking of disco seats and no correlation of main screen and disco seat ticket holding to enable reselling of a festival seat for a single film. While the data is there to do it, the FF team really don't need the stress or the extra work, it's not worth paying the ticketing platform to develop an even more bespoke platform for FF to deliver it, and I believe the organisers - while wanting to make a profit - are not looking to monetise the festival that aggressively.
Reselling the main screen seats would have two major advantages -

1. More money for the festival organisers (noting that individual seats give them way more money than passes do), and
2. Fewer wasted Discovery seats.
Regardless of data available, reselling already-sold festival seats would create an utter bun fight. It would require more ushers to manage, more ticketing overhead, not to mention the likely increase in arguments, delays and customer dissatisfaction.

Most of all, I would argue that for quite a few attendees, knowing that going to a disco film would take away your ability to decide said movie was crap and go back to the main screen, would likely put many people off going to a disco screen film altogether. Disco films that people take a punt on going to (and find they are a hidden gem) wouldn't get a chance at all if attendance meant losing your main screen seat for the clashing film.

At the end of the day, if there are free ticket no-shows (and unsold paid tickets) for a disco film, there's nothing to stop people who want to see said film and don't have a ticket waiting at the entrance and seat-filling just before showtime. It's what has happened every year we've had disco screens and does work without causing fights. Sure, it's not a perfect solution, but it is effective and doesn't create a massive administrative burden for the small team that works its collective nuts off to make this festival happen.
sherbetbizarre wrote:Problem is, if a group of you are in a row, would you really want a stranger turning up and sitting in the middle every other film?

One good thing about the weekend pass block at FF is feeling safe leaving your stuff by your seat all day, because you know and trust your neighbours.
Agreed - the fixed seating approach is a major selling point and differentiator for Frightfest over other film festivals. Most don't have assigned seating and some don't even guarantee that all festival pass holders will get into 'main' movies.

Re: Extra screenings of fully booked films

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 8:17 am
by jonbly
Commodore wrote:While the data is there to do it, the FF team really don't need the stress or the extra work, it's not worth paying the ticketing platform to develop an even more bespoke platform for FF to deliver it
It's a trivial query against the data they've now got. And from previous comments, it really is worth it.
Commodore wrote:...and I believe the organisers - while wanting to make a profit - are not looking to monetise the festival that aggressively.
True - but I'm sure they'd love to be able to drop the price of weekend passes.
Commodore wrote:I would argue that for quite a few attendees, knowing that going to a disco film would take away your ability to decide said movie was crap and go back to the main screen, would likely put many people off going to a disco screen film altogether.
...and that's pretty much my aim by raising this - to ensure that people who actually want to see the disco film can get a seat. And don't have to deal with the disruption of others leaving ten minutes in.