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Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

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Julian
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Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

#447018

Postby Julian » October 1st, 2021, 4:25 pm

Almost every cinema near me is showing the latest James Bond film, often on multiple screens, and I'd like to see it on a decent screen. There are sites like SeatGuru.com that allow you to look up really detailed information about seating plans and comments on good and bad seats on planes for pretty much any commercial airline route on a flight-by-flight basis. I'm wondering if there is any equivalent for cinema screens with a database of at least diagonal screen sizes and ideally other information to see how Screen 1 in the local arts cinema might compare with screen 2 in the local Odeon (for example).

I suspect a reasonable rule of thumb for the different screens within an individual cinema is that screen 1 is likely the biggest with screen sizes mostly working down from there but comparing screen sizes across cinemas seems more challenging which is why I was hoping there might be some sort of site that consolidates all of that information (and if there isn't then in my view there really should be).

- Julian

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Re: Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

#447039

Postby BobbyD » October 1st, 2021, 5:06 pm

Not sure where you are, but if you have the option of going imax that should solve your quandary

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Re: Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

#447055

Postby Breelander » October 1st, 2021, 6:04 pm

Julian wrote:I suspect a reasonable rule of thumb for the different screens within an individual cinema is that screen 1 is likely the biggest with screen sizes mostly working down from there but comparing screen sizes across cinemas seems more challenging... I was hoping there might be some sort of site that consolidates all of that information...


Don't think there is one. But as most cinema sites have seating plans for booking seats, the number of seats for each screen should be a pretty good guide to how big a screen it has.

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Re: Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

#447278

Postby Gerry557 » October 2nd, 2021, 4:34 pm

I here you on this. Its difficult to find out and sometimes even a visit doesn't help get you the information. It's a bit too late once you have bought a ticket. I suppose if you are a regular you might get to know which ones you prefer but even then you have to choose seating carefully. To close, too far back, not central for the sound etc.

I have a big screen and primary seating spot booked...... At home. James might be late but the martinis will be both shaken and stirred.

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Re: Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

#447486

Postby AF62 » October 3rd, 2021, 2:02 pm

With Cineworld you can go through with a dummy booking for each showing as far as choosing the seats, so you can see the number of seats - the more seats the larger the screen - and abandon the booking before payment.

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Re: Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

#447489

Postby AF62 » October 3rd, 2021, 2:08 pm

Gerry557 wrote:I suppose if you are a regular you might get to know which ones you prefer but even then you have to choose seating carefully. To close, too far back, not central for the sound etc


That’s me.

In normal times I usually see 100 to 150 films a year (Cineworld Unlimited card) and have my regular seats in each screen in each of the various cinemas I use.

Although if the film is busy I frequently just book any old seat and then just sit in one of ‘house seats’ seats which are permanently booked by the cinema so they can move someone to it if there is a problem with theirs - but 99.9% of the time they are unused. How do you establish which are the house seats - ah, that would be telling.

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Re: Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

#447554

Postby Gerry557 » October 3rd, 2021, 6:50 pm

Prey tell, no one's looking

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Re: Looking up screen sizes at cinemas?

#452391

Postby AF62 » October 22nd, 2021, 10:39 pm

Gerry557 wrote:Prey tell, no one's looking


When you have half an hour free make a fake booking for a daytime screening next week and you will see some seats already reserved. Daytime screenings because those are less likely to have advance bookings so it is more obvious, but the cinemas tend to book out the same seats for every screening as house seats for ease.

Rinse and repeat for every screen (can take a while if there are 16 or 20 screens) and do it across a couple of days just in case someone has really booked those seats.

What you will see are blocks of two or four seats that are constantly booked and those are the house seats. They are normally in good but not excellent positions, but good enough that if someone needs to be moved they are not going to complain.

And on a similar vein, you might have noticed the booking system won’t let you book seats leaving a single seat between you and the next booked seats (or you and the aisle).

It is simple to get around that by opening a different browser and starting to make a booking for that single seat. Then go back to your normal browser and you will see that single seat is now provisionally allocated (even though it hasn’t been paid for yet), so the system is happy there is no single seat gap between you and the next booked seats or the aisle for the seats you wanted, so will let you go ahead and book and pay for them.

Now just close the ‘provisional’ booking browser without paying and the single seat becomes available again, but unless the cinema is absolutely full nobody will book it so you are guaranteed a gap between you and the next people.


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