Memoirs from a Theater Staff: Concession

Retail is the backbone of the job market. For this capitalist nation to run we thus need the strong will and perseverance of the young and old to come together and form the foundation of America's greatest past time; shopping. Another favorite past time that is shared from countries around the world is to see a movie in a movie theater, because when you see something special on the big screen it can never be captured again from home. And so this four part series is dedicated to every retail worker, theater floor staffer, and the consumers. Each part will highlight a function at a theater, and through this I hope I enlighten the many as to how hard and demanding this job can be when given little to no respect at being a part of your happiness.

Now before this goes any further I would like to point out that not every theater is the same. The theater I worked at is on the bigger side, although within the chain it's more  average, and so smaller or independent theaters may not have had some of the experiences I'll go over. Also, one thing consumers may not realize is the reason concession prices are high is because that's how a theater mainly makes its money. Sure we get some out of the box office, but a good portion of the ticket sales goes back to Hollywood. It's more complicated than that, but let's not go down that rabbit hole for now.

With the rise of home theaters, better TVs, higher quality media, movie theaters had to really up their game to get people into seats. Which is why one of the bigger changes that happened within this decade are the lounge chairs. Nice, usually leather, recliners that make the viewing experience oh-so-not-cramped. Another avenue that changed in the larger chains is the food. Not only do you get your popcorn and candy at concession, but now you can get hot food and alcohol. Beery on tap, wine, hot dogs, pretzels, chicken tenders, cheese sticks, onion rings, and hamburgers are but a fraction of our menu now. I know, that's a lot, but we sell a good amount of alcohol, especially around the holidays, and the hot food orders truly stack up once we have a busy weekend. The prices may be excessive but generally the quality of food justifies it. It's not high dining, but I wouldn't say it sucks. Surprising in a satisfying way, just don't expect restaurant standards...we're still a movie theater.

But, as the classic standard, popcorn is still the number one food people get at a movie theater and is why it's also more than likely the most expensive. My theater currently has a small for just under $8 with each size up being $1 more, plus the larges have one free refill. As a business strategy these prices make you ruffle your nose in disgust against the small, but also make the big medium and larges somewhat worth it. The same goes for water. While our fountain drinks are nothing to sneeze at in price the sizes we offer more than makes up for it. Water on the other hand is fairly popular too and thus we charge over $5 per bottle. In my opinion that's not worth it, especially when we offer courtesy cups (AKA free) for the water fountain.

Now that we got the basics out of the way with let's dig into why we're all here: the stupid questions customers ask us. Every customer isn't mean, but a lot of them ask stupid questions, the same questions, that dig under your skin throughout your 8-10 hour work shift. So instead of ranting for a few paragraphs I'll save some time and just list off the top of my head the questions I often get at concession:

• Can I buy tickets here? (No, go to Box Office. And no, Guest Services is not Box office)
• Can I pay for my food with this Fandango gift card? (No, Fandango is a third party company that works with theaters, but are separate and has a focus of online tickets)
• What sizes are your popcorn/drinks? (Right up there in plain view so you don't have to ask me)
• You charge how much for that?! (Yes, really. As hard as it is to believe we floor staff have no control over these prices)
• What are your drinks? (In front of your face, as you can see we have a soda tower with stickers)
• Do you have _____? (Most likely no, but we do have a few candies behind the counter because they would either sell too fast or barely at all)
• Is that middle bag a medium? (Yes, generally in this reality medium means middle and if that small one on the left is the small...well you get the picture)
• Can I have the bag? (Well...we have two bags; a small and a medium. Why don't you try being an adult and actually ask for the size you want instead of describing what it looks like)
• I'd like a medium. (...I get this statement far too often for my liking. If you're going to be ordering something it generally helps when your server knows what you're asking. A medium cup? Perhaps a medium bag of popcorn instead?)

As you can read these are fairly simple questions that could be answered by either a quick glance or simple knowledge. Arguably these questions aren't that bad, and if it's a slow day I wouldn't mind them, but when it's a busy weekend and your theater had already sold over two thousand tickets (heck even just a thousand) these questions become very common place and are asked by every customer. Not only that but you'll also get frustrating interactions which I'll also list:

• Not knowing what you want and coming up anyway while blocking people who do know what they want and making them impatient.
• Families talking to each other asking what they want, and expecting me to eaves drop to take their order. Then getting angry at me for not taking their order when they never told me. A) Never assume I know what you want if you don't directly tell me B) Families can either be loud, soft spoken, or come up with multiple choices to which I can't keep up by myself. There needs to be a clear voice or I'll mess up your order somewhere.
• Changing your order after the fact. Whether it was before, or after you paid, just know that discarding what we originally gave you is always a pain. My theater chain in particular has a rigorous way of disposing items. First, we can't sell them again. They have to be cleaned (if able) and sent out back to be recorded (date, time, why) and placed in a container before it is counted again and gone over the next week for disposal.
• Arguing over the rules. Okay, this shouldn't need to be explained, but you the customer are coming into our place of business for pleasure and on your own accord. Like any reasonable place we have rules, but certain aspects of the theater seem to be constantly questioned. Example: alcohol. Whomever is working alcohol will generally get excited customers, but there are always those few assholes who'll make your job hell. I've had customers ask me (in a rude way) why I am doing what I'm doing (like pouring beer into a plastic cup. He wanted to hold the bottle in the theater, but we don't allow that because of the potential of broken glass) constantly. Also, we have to see every person's ID no matter their age. We need to hold it, see it, and then input their birth date into the computer. I know it's annoying, but the theater could lose their liquor license otherwise. Everyone whom has worked this station has gotten intense shit about this from certain customers. I've personally had to deny someone who didn't have an ID, his excuse was that he was out of state and didn't need one, to which he got angry and demanded a refund on his movie before storming out and that was a nice experience.

There are many other situations that I can think of, some worse than others, but I think you get the picture. In my mind concessions is the first line of defense. Consumers will either have the best experience or worst because this is where they get the most personal aspect about movie going; food. Concessions can be slow, fun, and very socialable depending on the day, but it can also be fast paced, emotionally punishing, and exhausting. So I'll end this post with this; please when you go out during the upcoming holiday be kind, be prepared, and be respectful to these hard working floor staff. They're working their butt off for you and have to say the same questions all day to 200-800 people a day. We will forget, we will ask you the same question multiple times, but that's because we want you to get what you want.