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?

There are some people who very deliberately try this sort of stunt. I do think the woman was very rude to you, but she’s maybe had a bad experience before! I went to the theatre with my family a few weeks ago - we arrived with little time to spare and a woman was sitting in one of our seats. Asked her to move politely and she muttered an apology and moved along a couple. Until another couple arrived after us and she was now sitting in their seats….. it became pretty obvious she was cruising for a better seat than she had. I understand that you made a genuine mistake - but it was your mistake - and the only thing to do is apologise and move as quickly as possible. Especially when it’s a case of back row versus front row which people will have chosen deliberately.

No, they're in the back row! Row F

@LetsGoOutside row A will be the front, also the wheelchair accessible seats wouldn’t be at the front would they? How would they get down the stairs? That should have tipped you off. The wheelchair accessible seats weren’t near where you booked…

Sorry OP, they quite obviously look like front row seats to me!

If the film had already started it's their fault really. People who are late just need to find somewhere and disrupt other people as little as possible

What I don’t understand is how an adult can be incapable of reading. OP states the rows in the cinema didn’t have the letters on them.

Your tickets were for the front row. You chanced getting better seats for less money!

Don't worry. It was a mistake and she should should not have been so unmannerly when pointing it out.

We regularly go to the pictures-a large council owned one. Usually, there are about 20 of us in the whole place which contains over 100 seats on the ground floor alone.

We don't even check the tickets-just sit where we normally sit.

Last Sunday night, there were 15 people in.

A couple came to us and said we were sitting in their seats.

They were right-we were but they weren't special seats and there were nearly 100 other seats for them to choose from. Anyway, we got up, gave them their seats and sat in the row behind them.

They were in the right but it was laughable.

No they don’t, they had pre booked seats on the back row, they just needed to sneak in and sit in their seats. Not wait 5 minutes for OP to move because she can’t read the row numbers or move her kids without a man

I am confused. Didn't you check your row (A, B, C) and seat (1, 2, 3) before you sat down? On what basis did you think you were in the correct seats? And why did your husband have to go find someone else to help- you could just ask people next to or in front of you what row it is? I understand you have been to the cinema after a while but it's not your first time, is it?Of course, the woman was rude in the way she spoke. You should have been extra careful to ensure that you were indeed sitting in the right seats.

@PumpkinSpicedFattie the OP says that she couldn't see the letters for the rows.... doesn't mean they weren't there! Every cinema I've ever been in has had the letters marked somewhere. The OP has also said in her later post that she just went to the back and sat down, as that's what she thought she had booked.

It's clear they're front row seats. Also, if the aisles were numbered common sense says

1 - a
2 - b

So on and so forth so your husband didn't really need to go and check with anyone and delay things further. The screen is normally shown when you book as well.

That being said there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a grown woman to point in a 3YOs face no matter how annoyed she is. That's not acceptable behaviour.

YABU. Not because you made a mistake - that’s just unfortunate - but because you didn’t move straightaway and tried to argue with the woman despite you knowing you hadn’t seen any Row letter (it would have been there - you just missed it). Then, to add insult to injury, you send your husband off and just sit there in the woman’s seats ‘because you’ve got too much food’ to move!

You obviously sounded like you were being CFers and refusing to move so no wonder she was pissed off as she stood there waiting for you to vacate her seats, while your husband wandered off ‘to check’ even though he could have had a proper look for the Row letters or asked people near him.

Eh? How can the end of the row say only 1 and 9?

Yes me too! This was something we complained about as staff constantly. This is actually a really common mistake that we saw being made all of the time.

Where I worked we were happy to swap the seats if someone had made a mistake, as long as there were tickets available on the row they wanted to sit at. Lots of people couldn’t comprehend why they couldn’t sit on the sold out back row despite it being their mistake.

I don't think I would have automatically recognised the ODEON label representing the screen position

I wouldn't either. I'm more used to booking local theatre tickets and the stage and front seats are usually at the bottom. I' probably have made that mistake myself.

I Have done this once, (booked front row, instead of back row) but mosty now the option usually states where the screen is; I ALWAYS check which way is the front or back because of this..
Due to wearing varivocal glasses, I find being too near the front very difficult to watch.

The booking screen has the screen clearly visible, and yes usually the wheelchair seats are at front in many cinemas where you enter in the back the accessible seats are there. But really the clue is the screen location on booking page, it's always there .

Itd Also be obvious from the disabled spaces being where they were when you walked into the room

You might not notice that if you weren't actually looking for disabled spaces and there were no wheelchairs there.

It would be very obvious that there was a space rather than a chair, especially when sat night next to it.

I’ve had interactions in ten theatre where people thought I was in their seat but they’d booked the seats for a different day, so I wouldn’t have moved until I was sure I was in the wrong seats. I wouldn’t appreciate someone getting in my child’s face and would have probably lost my temper at that.

What is wrong with moving 2 young children?

She was rude but she was probably stressed managing an autistic child at the cinema and then finding people in her seats faffing around and refusing to move.

Are you that woman ?

You can clearly see the screen when booking which you’ve cropped out of your image 🙄