Alamo Drafthouse

Nature of the Offense

At this point, the Alamo Drafthouse has earned a fairly big reputation, even nationwide, so I don't need to spend much time setting them up. Basically, it's a second-rate movie theater that sells food and beer, and it's become pretty popular around Austin. They recently moved to a new system where, when you buy tickets online, you have to select a seat in advance. From everyone I've talked to, it's basically an unmitigated disaster, as my story can attest.

A couple days after I walked out without seeing a movie, I received an email asking for my feedback. Ask and ye shall receive...

The Letter

I purchased tickets for Valentine's day via your online ticketing system for myself and my wife. At the time, the seat selection menu only showed single seats available, despite the website stating leaving single seats would not be allowed. So I purchased two seats on the same row, trusting that the basic human decency of my fellow moviegoers would encourage them to slide one whole seat over and let me sit with my wife on Valentine's day.

Still more subtle than The Departed.

Perhaps I should have taken my cues from your petty, insensitive treatment of the girl you threw out of the theater for using her phone, and then turned her into a national laughingstock by posting her voicemail on YouTube, because your customers are just as rude. When I asked the woman in the seat next to mine if she could slide over one seat (to a better vantage point, no less), she acted like I had just split open a live infant child in front of her. Very quickly, two or three of your servers converged on me to see how I could have so badly offended this woman. When I told them of my situation, they were quick to inform me just how impossible it was for anyone to slide over even one seat in your system, whining something about "shifting tabs" like it was cold fusion. Mind you, this was 40 minutes before showtime, so it wasn't like I was holding up the start of whatever stop-motion Liza Minelli tribute you were planning to run before the opening credits.

After a few minutes of being treated like a kindergartener who won't go back to his desk and put his dick away, we decided to just leave without seeing our movie. My wife, knowing we wouldn't be able to get in anywhere else at 8PM on Valentine's day, was in tears.

I've tried to like you, Alamo, but as it turns out, the drunk girl on the voicemail is right. You guys are pompous and stuck-up, for no good reason, and more often than not the result of that is you treat your customers like shit. I will not be back for any reason, and more than likely the readers of Letters from the Angry Customer will not, either.

The Response

Greetings Angry,

I appreciate you taking the time to provide us with some feedback and I also wanted to take this opportunity to apologize for your sub-par experience. You are correct about our website not allowing single seat gaps but there are few instances where this can still take place such as when there are 3 seats available but only 2 are being purchased. I would like to think that most people would be willing to shift over a seat to accommodate a fellow moviegoer but we cannot force people to move from their chosen seat and some people go to lengths to ensure getting that ideal seat.

Since food orders are tied to those seat #'s it does make it difficult to ensure that orders are delivered to the proper table but this is by no means impossible. I agree that this could have been better handled by our staff and my biggest regret is that a manager was not involved. Rest assured that your comments open up the discussion about how to handle seating issues and I will take the opportunity to help coach our staff on the matter.

As for our PSA about the woman who got booted, we've actually gotten national attention in praise for our no talking policy. This was featured on Anderson Cooper which is why it got so big and made its way onto youTube. Since then, we've received tons of support from movie-lovers, actors, and filmmakers alike which has helped build our library of no talking PSA's featuring the likes of Danny Devito, George Romero, and Michael Madsen to name a few. As movie-lovers ourselves, our goal is to do everything we ca to preserve the movie watching experience where this is a common nuisance that is almost never enforced by most theaters.

Most of our policies are driven by guest feedback so you can always feel free to drop us a line through our website www.drafthouse.com and contact info can be found at the bottom of our main page. You can even leave comments specific to each location and there is a handy form that makes it easy to leave this response and gives us the opportunity to follow up with you.

Best regards,
-Mario

The Verdict

Severity of the Offense: 10/10

Not once have I ever gone to a theater and not even been able to sit down. More or less a complete failure in every way.

Corporate Care Level: 6/10

The YouTube video of the girl's voicemail is pretty indicative of how much they value constructive criticism. I can't evaluate whether they really take customer feedback into consideration when making policy changes. Send them a letter and tell them I sent you; let me know if you get anywhere.

Adequacy of Response: 7/10

I'll mention here that I was offered a refund, which is what I consider the bare minimum for receiving absolutely no service whatsoever. I always appreciate a personalized response, although I suspect that paragraph about the YouTube video was pre-written.

Overall: 3/10

They get one point for giving me a refund, and I'm actually a bit split on whether even that much is warranted. The other two are awarded for the response letter. The bottom line, though, is that Alamo was never good enough in the first place to make it worth all this trouble. I'll just stick with Netflix.