I complained about the Odeon’s ‘Gallery’ a while ago. The Gallery is supposed to be ‘enhanced’ cinema, designed to improve the movie-going experience. It used to be good when it was UCI Filmworks’ Gallery, but ever since the Odeon took over, it’s been rubbish.
Over in the US, though, Regal Entertainment is trialling a new feature in its theaters, something all the cinemas here would do well to emulate to improve our trips to the cinema: ‘The Regal Guest Response System (RGRS)’.
Currently testing in 13 of Regal’s theaters across the country, the RGRS is a special pager with four buttons, one for each of the following problems: Sound, picture, disturbance and, of course, piracy. The pager is not located on the armrest or attached to any part of the seat, but is instead something given to some patrons to bring into the theater.
So they give you four magic buttons and if someone’s making a noise or the sound or picture is rubbish, you can page someone and they’ll turn up and fix the problem. Nice.
Of course, if the Odeon ever implemented it, they’d actually have to staff their cinemas, but that’s a problem for another day.