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?

Also why was the husband weebling off to find someone in the cinema? Just ask someone else on the same row?

Though I imagine that the OP will now say that within this chaos-cinema with no row numbers, the entire cinema was empty/ they all only spoke Mandarin/ were other worldly beings…

You had four popcorns?? [misses the point]

Quite.

Where exactly did you sit to not realise? "Seat 7 and 8" on the back row would be spaces for wheelchairs not actual seats. How would you expect the wheelchairs to get down the steps to the front?

Normally at odeon the letters are on the floor of the row.

I worked at a cinema whilst I was at university and so many people chose their own tickets and made this mistake. If they booked at box office and they wanted to chose the seats themselves I would have to reiterate 5 times that was the front row. I wish they would label them front and back.

It was a nightmare for films such as avengers where screenings would be sold out for literal days in a row and everyone assumed they had the back row and we couldn’t swap them.

The letter absolutely will have been printed on the floor though, you’ll just have missed it. How would someone in a row half way up the screen know that was their row otherwise?

Most of our screens had the wheelchair seats at the back. We would take the customer up in the lift and let them in through the fire exit in the back or the screen.

You are missing the point. The OP is saying that the thought she bought tickets in the back row and, thus, sat in the back row. But actually, she had bought the cheaper front row tickets.

Yes. I am, because I just looked again. Long night.

I can see why she was irate because she knew 100 percent they were her seats, but was faced with someone refusing to accept that and refusing to move.
I can see your side too that you genuinely also thought they were your seats. It was a mistake. I hope you apologised.

@McSpootyou're quite right.

Seats are facing the wrong way if the screen was at the back

See, I don’t see that. I think they look fine…either standing at the back looking forward as it actually is, or standing at the front looking backwards if OP thought the screen was next to the wheelchair accessible seats.

The screen on the image is a clue obviously, but easily enough mistaken for an advertising banner.

Maybe go for a nice walk next time? Seriously, let it go. You were wrong, she was rude, no-one died

And when she walked in and sat next to the empty spots that are for wheelchairs she still somehow thought those empty spaces were seats and the disabled spaces for wheelchairs were the seats at the front?

Yes, missing the point 😁
(That’s not where she sat which was the whole problem!)

It depends where the entrance is, if you come in at the front and it slops upwards then the disabled seats will be at the front. If you come in at the back and it slopes downwards then they will be at the back.

My local cinema has both styles in different screens so I'm used to using both.

See this is why I would have thought it was the back row, due to the wheelchair seating. I can only assume that in this screen the entry is on the highest level and you go down the stairs to the rows closest to the screen. I don't think that the OP did anything bad, they made a mistake, weren't rude or anything and apologised when they realised, no big deal. As opposed to the other party who were unnecessarily aggressive and rude

So, I can see why you thought they were back seats but every time I have selected cinema seats it shows the ‘screen’ at the top of the picture ie just in front of row a! So, only through experience would I know that the seats you’ve picked were at the front! I mean, there was no need for her to carry on like a child but still at least you’ll know for in the future!

The wheelchair symbols are on the front row sears.

It's a bit hard to believe that the seating plan is that hard to follow..I can see it's difficult moving children once settled but in future maybe check seats properly before you sit down. The other lady sounds mean and impatient..

Back row in this case. Entrance must be at the back. Not what I’m used to personally so I might have made this mistake too if I didn’t realise the blue bit saying Odeon represented the screen.

Agreed. That would have annoyed me more than the being in the wrong seats- someone saying they couldn’t move 2 kids without a husband.

When I worked in a cinema and the wheelchair seats were at the back, standard entry would still be ground up.

The customer in the wheelchair would be taken up in the lift and let in through the fire doors at the back.

Oh okay, thank you. I hadn’t considered that option.
Wheelchair seating is in front of the screen at my local cinema, near the general entrance.

As I said upthread I do wish they’d mark the position of the doors on these computer screens. It would make booking more straightforward for many of us.

They probably thought you were chancers. You sat in seats that they paid extra to sit in and which are the better seats. And then you came across like you were playing dumb over the seat numbers. The letters were definitely there - either on the floor or on the side as otherwise everyone would have been sat in the wrong seats and taken ages to sit down whilst they figure out which row is which.

Genuine mistake on your part but I would have thought you were being CFers.

So neither of you could understand that the big Odeon banner was the screen or that if you couldn't find the row letter you could look at the next row and work it out? Back seats are more usually expensive than front ones so yeah I'd be a bit annoyed to find some chancers sat there.

A few people have said it should be obvious Row A was front row, in my local cinema Row A is the back row. So don't think it's a big a clue as some might think.

Mind you, finding wheelchair spaces in the middle of the back row, when the OP expected her seats to be in the middle of the back row probably should have made her question if she'd got the right seats before sitting everyone down.

Where where you incorrectly sitting OP? Also, did you move when your husband came back and discovered you were wrong?

Also, finally did you tell the cinema the fact they didn't label the rows with the row letter, made things confusing.