Guys, guys. My experience working at a pretty large upscale movie theater during SW: TLJ weekend
Posted by
con_carne
Dec 19 '17, 19:12
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Thursday night sneaks, Thursday night drama!
Surprise. After having been scheduled for concessions and being placed in charge of cooking stuff for a while, the manager asked me if I felt up for greeting the rest of the night (making a brief speech in front of every showtime). Something about putting the best crew members in their best areas because it's such an important night. But, the reality is that the person they had for greeter was a newer guy and was doing some stuff that I guess wasn't quite right. She told me managers and some OPS leads (asst. managers) got together to try and decide who was the best at greeting and apparently my name came up. I said hells yeah, I was up for it. So off I went, to speak in front of sold out 300-seat auditoriums, probably smelling of hot dogs.
This is, of course, a sort of dream come true. We all wear our favorite movie title on our name tags, and mine has always been Star Wars: A New Hope. The greeter speech is for welcoming the audience, saying what we do, reminding of the no cell phones and of course saying a bit about the film they are about to watch.
Doing that in front of this audience turns you into a kind of Star Wars hype man.
This audience was great. They were experienced moviegoers, since they knew to buy their tickets weeks ahead of time. Their attention was easily gotten. And they were always eager to applaud and cheer and be excited for the movie. So I got to do that around 25 times, not counting our other films (I still tell our Three Billboards audiences they are about to watch pretty much my favorite movie of the year "and I think you will see what I mean."). Showtimes are typically 5 or 10 minutes apart (with SW showings every 15 minutes on the dot) and some breaks. Multiply that by an entire evening, and for SW into the wee hours, and that was my night.
For Friday, I got scheduled to be opening greeter, coincidentally enough. For showtimes starting at 9am. After closing the previous night, this is kind of a crappy schedule. I could have complained and gotten them to change it. But since it's greeter, I'm cool with it. This is not hard work. This also gave me my Friday night off, which is heaven sent on a busy movie weekend (I would of course use this to finally go ahead and watch SW: TLJ). I had to endure some gentle ribbing from my coworkers about how I have this reputation for being the best greeter, a prized and easy shift for crew members who enjoy doing it. So I greeted for another full day. My most pressing concerns were merely that my voice would hold out and not be too sleepy for my own viewing later on. Another day of fun fun fun.
Saturday night I pulled a seater shift, which is also important but very easy. Among other duties, seater (a.k.a. usher I guess) has to look for and deal with audience members who have their cell phones out during the movie. I had only two of those the entire night, and one of them wasn't even for SW. Look, if you're watching SW: TLJ opening weekend with a nice auditorium picked out, you are not going to be on your cell phone during the movie. And if you do, it is going to be obvious you are the tremendous jackass. Experienced moviegoers know this. You are there for one reason and that is to see what happens next in the saga. Hence, everything went verrry smoothly. I also endured some more co-worker ribbing for pulling these easy and fun shifts while everybody else is working their asses off on the busiest nights of the year. :-)
Well, Sunday night I got to pay for it all by having to close concessions and do the inventory count. :-)
Now I have plans to see SW: TLJ again tomorrow night with my beach volleyball peeps, and I can't wait. I freely admit I have been insufferable to my co-workers lately because most of them are *waiting* a few weeks so they can see SW: TLJ for free as per our perks (we normally get to see all the films for free but Disney has special blackouts for their biggest titles). They are also just working a lot these days and very busy. So I have been casually letting them know how very good this movie is, which they are *waiting* to see. Take it from a Star Wars fan. They also think it's amazing that I'm going to see it again so soon. Guys, guys. It's hard out here for a padawan who has been waiting for Mark Hamill's return since the age of nine.
What a time to be alive!
TL;DR I lucked out and got to do a lot of fun stuff during the busiest days of the entire year. Co-workers think I'm crazy for paying to see this movie multiple times.
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