AIBU… Genuine mistake

[LetsGoOutside]

What is the done thing when this situation happens? it was a genuine mistake. Picture of seats attached so you can see our thinking.

We have not been the pictures in over 5 years. Took the kids yesterday. Booked what we thought were back seats, they look like back seats on the pictures.

Film starts. Lady, Man and their child approach us. She says “You’re sat in our seats move.” My husband said “I don’t think we are, opens his phone to find the tickets.” I said what’s the seat number, I check both ends of the isle and they only say numbers not letters. So I came back and said I don’t know what to do. My husband said I’ll go and ask one second. The woman is getting more annoyed by this point. I said he’ll only be a minute. She said you need to move now, I said I can’t move both kids, all our food on my own it’ll only take a minute we genuinely think these are our seats. She starts pointing in my child’s face, whose three, saying move him, he’s in my son’s seat and he’s autistic. It’s my child’s first time at the pictures, it’s dark and there is a strange woman pointing at him telling him to move. He gets upset. Not that this is relevant but I felt like saying so, son is autistic too! Anyway husband returns and says yes we are in the wrong seats. We both apologised while moving the kids and our things.

I understand I was wrong, it was a genuine mistake though, look at the picture would you think these are back seats? Or if you go the pictures a lot is it obvious and we’ve just been really silly. 😂 I genuinely thought we were in the right seats and did everything we could to resolve it quickly.

AIBU would you have moved two young children under 4 if you thought you were right?

I can’t see how it was two seconds l the other woman was rude, there is no doubt about it but all this buffonary about not understanding how they could be the wrong seats was also unnecessary. The woman was probably completely bemused as to how two adults couldn’t tell what row of seats they were in.

I imagine if she writes to the manager, and obviously that depends on whether she actually emails the manager and not someone else, then she will just say ‘yes, the rows are labelled.’ Imagine the chaos if they weren’t!

Why on earth was the woman so rude? Annoyance is understandable but obviously she's been poorly raised.

And that still wouldn’t entitle you to speak to them like shit. Whatever happened to ‘excuse me but you’re in our seats’ and sorting it out from there ? OP would still have checked but the whole thing would have been less stressful for everyone concerned. And if this woman was so concerned about her autistic son her behaviour wasn’t exactly setting him a great example.0-60 in terms of anger management isn’t good on any level.

Probably because OP wouldnt move out of her seat for quite some time. It sounds like she asked at first but after a fair amount of faff from OP and her DH got annoyed

Obviously we only have OPs version of the woman being rude.

If the other woman were to post it might be that she would write we arrived in time for the film to start (son is unable to sit through the adverts). Arrived at our seat and found a family already sat there! As the film was already beginning I said to the family sat in them, these are our seats. Rather than moving, the man went off to check which took a while to sort, leaving us stood around waiting. We are regular cinema go-oers and I had my tickets available to show these were our seats but the woman sat there only seemed to want an attendant to prove they weren't which seemed rude that she thought I would be asking her to move if I knew they weren't ours! Am I right in thinking this family were a bunch of CF trying to get the back seats that cost more than the seats they moved to which were at the front and cheaper?

She was rude but she's probably fed up of going to the pictures and some dickhead is sitting in her seat. It happens all the time and people act disgruntled about being made to move as if they weren't the ones who made the mistake.

Regardless, the woman was rude. The last time we went to the cinema a family were sitting in our seats and I said "I'm really sorry, but I think you might be sitting in our seats". That's the correct British way to say it. 😄

She was rude - just so unnecessary.
we were at a theatre performance yesterday and a man came up to us and said you are in our seats- you need to move. Dh checked tickets and said we are 31 and 32 - so seems to be the right seats. He repeated we were in the wrong seats, but then decided to sit in 33 and 34 with his wife. More people arrive and it turns out he is the wrong row! He then turned to me and said - it’s all his wife’s fault as she doesn’t listen. Complete dickhead!

I agree, I hadn't realised how many perfect people there are, who have never made a mistake!

Yes, the OP made a mistake, and perhaps didn't handle it particularly well - it surely would have been easier just to quickly ask another customer nearby what row they were in, rather than dispatching husband to go and find out - and I'm absolutely sure there would be row letters somewhere, perhaps on the floor, otherwise almost nobody would be sitting in the correct place!

But the woman whose seats you were in sounds very rude, she also could have handled the situation better.

Meh, I'd just dismiss it all as one of those things, and not give it too much headspace later.

Ah, on reflection that's very true. I should have added to my post just now that the family were pissed off at having to move and I was the apologetic one (with the correct tickets)!

Don't they have usherettes any more in cinemas or any staff to deal with seating issues ?

I suppose though from the other woman’s point of view. Op and her family were in the woman’s seats.

Instead of just apologising and moving it sounds as though op sent her husband off to check. The woman whose seats they were probably felt very irritated as she knew that she was in the right. The film had started and she just wanted to sit down.

I think op just needs to chalk it up to one of those things and she’ll know how the seating plan works next time.

Yes they were just cheeky buggers trying it on.

Well I will be honest and say I am confused because the wheelchair seats are normally at the front for accessibility reasons and on that basis, I agree with the OPs argument, she looks like she is on the back row.

These types of threads are wild.

OP was completely in the wrong.
Read the tickets wrong. Sat in the wrong place.Then refused to move because " autistic child"

And then comes on here with a cropped image, not showing the screen right in front of your seats. Give me strength....

I'd have been pissed off too if you sat there all helpless and hapless in my seats.

And dithering when asked to move.

She was wrong not to check the tickets properly, and then even more wrong to faff about not moving immediately

Think you should stick to Netflix!

It depends where the entrance and stairs are. They are either at front or back. Front if you enter and exit at the front.

Agree with PP - I haven't been to the cinema since pre-COVID so certainly not a regular and just glancing at that imagine I don't immediately assume that the ODEON rectangle is a screen, especially as another PP mentioned of the location of the accessible seats. For avoidance of doubt, they should just write screen on the rectangle rather than odeon!

Agree with the sentiment of there was no need for the other family to be rude. They should have said "excuse me, I believe you're in our seats", then you could have gone through your checking process (though it is ridiculous that the row letters weren't marked anyway in the cinema) and sorted it out without everyone having a bad feeling for the rest of the film. I assume because they came in once the film had started they were stressed out after rushing there knowing they were going to be late. Doesn't excuse the rudeness but we've all been there!

A is always at the front- the wheelchair seats are always on the back row.
I see how you made the mistake but I think you really should realised row A would never be at the back if you gave it any thought.

For goodness sake, cinemas, theatres and seated concert halls are always numbered A at the front running backwards.

Even if the OP didn't know that it's really, really obvious on the Odeon's booking page. The OP has cropped what she posted to make her look in the right. And all the rows are lettered at both ends of the row.

As for being rude, well there's only OP's version and even from that her point blank refusal to check properly makes her unreasonable.

A is occasionally the back row, though not usually.

The wheelchair seats are at the front where I am, because that’s where the exit is in my local cinema.

I have literally NEVER come across A being the back row either in a cinema or a theatre- and I worked in theatres for 30 years.

I've never in decades of going to theatres, cinemas and seated concert halls come across any where A is not the front row.

A pp mentioned it’s like that in her local cinema 🤷‍♀️ It might make sense if you come in at the back?