Why AMC's New Seat Tier System is a Terrible Idea

This past week AMC Theatres (American Multi-Cinema Theatres) announced a new feature that will charge ticket prices based on the seating location. Seats in the front will be the cheaper seats, while those in the middle will cost more.

Sightline is what AMC is calling the new three-tier ticket pricing initiative. The plan is to roll this out to 1,000 theaters by the end of the year. But will be in effect for any showings after 4:00 PM.

How Sightline will Work

According to AMC via Business Wire:

Sightline at AMC more closely aligns AMC’s approach to seat pricing with the experience-based options offered by other entertainment and event venues and offers three different seat-pricing options:

• Standard Sightline – these seats are the most common in auditoriums and are available for the traditional cost of a ticket
• Value Sightline – these seats are in the auditorium’s front row, as well as select ADA seats in each auditorium, and are available at a lower price than Standard Sightline seats. Value Sightline pricing is only available to AMC Stubs members, including the free tier membership – AMC Insider.
• Preferred Sightline – these seats are typically in the middle of the auditorium and are priced at a slight premium to Standard Sightline seats. As an added benefit to AMC’s most loyal moviegoers, AMC Stubs A-List members may make reservations in the Preferred Sightline Section at no additional cost.

Junk Fees and Punishing People with Less Income

AMC is the largest movie theatre chain in the United States. Most of every movie theater near me in Maryland is an AMC Theatre.

I’ve already pre-ordered seats to see the new Marvel Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania film. But this might be the last movie I see at an AMC theatre. If this is how they want to treat their customers, then they aren’t getting any more of my hard-earned cash. Fuck you, AMC.

According to the Washington Post, if AMC is successful, other movie theater chains will likely follow AMC’s example. It’s just the beginning of the end.

Airline Tickets & Other Junk Fees

It’s already frustrating trying to purchase airline tickets. We must pay a premium to avoid airlines packing us as tight as sardines in a can and in seats that recline but don’t recline enough. And with legroom, that is both a joke and a threat to the blood flow.

The older I get, the harder it is for me to rationalize sitting in uncomfortable airline seats not designed for comfort but to fit as many poor folks as possible, with snacks and drinks as an afterthought. With Wifi, but only if you are willing to pay $20--even if you’re in the air for forty-five minutes.

With no other choice, I pay more to have more space and comfort and not live with permanent back problems.

I’m not as young and agile as I once was. My punishment for making more money is paying for more comfortable seats because I can no longer handle less than that. It’s a choice I shouldn’t have to make, but here we are.

Ticketmaster Hates Us the Most

It’s nearly impossible to buy concert tickets thanks to the Ticketmaster/Live Nation monopoly allowed to exist in this country. Even then, fuck me for trying to buy even the most reasonable seats.

I know the Taylor Swift fans are already on this. We may see some law passed in the next year or so addressing junk fees.

Sporting Event Junk Fees

Football tickets have always been expensive. I could only afford football tickets consistently when I was a student at a large State University. Most of my adult sporting outings have been to baseball games. I’ve done it with friends and groups of friends. I’m already seeing a change in the pricing of baseball tickets.

I was okay with sporting events being expensive. I’ve never been okay with airline junk fees. But this latest move by AMC feels like a direct assault toward everyday people, my young adult life, and my childhood.

I don’t feel like I am being provocative when I accuse AMC of attacking my childhood and young adult life.

When I was a Kid ...!

When I was a kid, going to the movies was about something other than trying to make sure you could afford the better seats. It was about the experience and sharing it with others. If you showed up early enough, you could easily score good seats. If you showed up late, then you didn’t get great seats. That always seemed fair to me.

Everyone paid the same price.

Then, movie theatres introduced reserved theatre seating. I was on board with this new feature. Being able to reserve my seats ahead of the show reduced the need for me to show up early. It was convenient, and there was no premium. Regardless, AMC still tacked on a small fee. And the only way around that made-up “processing fee” was to join one of their membership programs.

I remember even after I joined, one time I went to the movie theatre, and there were more people in AMC’s membership program than there weren’t. I waited just as long to get my popcorn and soda pop.

90’s Teenager

As a teenager, I would spend some Saturdays with my fellow teenage Mallrats hanging out at the arcade. We could buy tickets and sit together to see a movie. Nine times out of ten, we just paid for the tickets and snuck in snacks since we didn’t want to have to pay the movie theatre’s obnoxious charges for soda and popcorn.

Young Adulthood

As a young adult, one day after closing a store on a Sunday, my coworkers and I decided to watch a movie together.

The random outings of a group of young adults may no longer be possible. The more it costs to pay for good seats, the less likely these unexpected events can occur for anyone--the younger generation might never get to experience this. And you will never know the joy of randomly enjoying a show.

For the longest time, movies felt more populace than other outings. You could see a major film like the Avengers in a packed theatre. Everyone would be enjoying those shows together, reacting together, and commenting.

Not anymore.

Never Going to the Movie Theatre Again

My worse fear is never going to a movie again and experiencing something as big as Marvel’s The Avengers or Interstellar on a large screen. If this continues, I’ll invest more in making my home theatre the best experience I can make it. But unless I’m a millionaire or want to create an entire movie theatre room (which I don’t), it will never replace just going to a show with my fellow human being.

We’re heading toward a road where fees and premiums will slowly but surely price out the average person. And fewer and fewer people will be able to afford to go to a show.