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’ve never booked seats where it wasn’t obvious where the screen was. Why did you assume that was the back row?

I understand thinking wheelchairs will go to the front but I’d want more than that to assume the layout.

It’s strange not to have letters somewhere as even if you see a map at the entrance it could be easy to miscount unless you’re at front or back. Also some mentioned row numbers but they are the same for each row often so don’t help unless you know you’re on correct letter row.

It was rude of her but it’s annoying when people sit in your seats and you get a lot of chancers.

Row A is obvs front row seats and it normally shows the screen in the picture too.

Wait a minute - if you were in those seats in the BACK row you were clearly next to two wheelchair spaces. That would be instantly obvious, looking at the seat map.

So you were obviously in the wrong seats.

They clearly take their autistic son in at the last possible moment and sit in the same seats each time.

So you were rude for assuming you were right and they were wrong, and not just moving rather than fannying about trying to prove they are your seats.

When I was about 12, my mum used to take me and my two brothers to a central library where they had a cinema screen. During the summer holidays they would show films for kids fairly cheap. The film was Short Circuit and were seated on the front row. Someone else came and told us we were in their seats. We were in their seats, because our tickets was for the day before! The library were very nice about it and let us stay, but they seated us in the central aisle on plastic chairs, right at the front, everyone could see us. I remember being so embarrassed - because everything is embarrassing at 12. I'm still a bit paranoid about being in the wrong seat at the cinema or on a train now.

I've never been in a cinema or a theatre where row A isn't at the front!

Still silly of them not to have the row letters clearly visible though.

An innocent & understandable mistake.

However, no stranger should have told your child to move.

The graphic you showed is incompetently designed. This is not uncommon, sadly, despite professional service. The 'screen' is represented by a colour block with the company name. This is easily mistaken for a brand ident. The seats are difficult to decipher. They have top and bottom bars - do they have a handle and a footrest? Are they shown from above or face-on? The reference to recliners has no context. The seats are all the same. Are these all recliners? If not, how do you select them? And so on. The root mistake is the usual one: the designer is explaining it to themselves (who already understands it) rather than to someone who has no prior knowledge.

I don't think you're being unreasonable, people make mistakes - it's how you deal with it. You got it checked, apologised and moved. She should be ashamed at their demeanor. Surely anyone can wait a couple minutes whilst it gets resolved.

Conveniently cropped the very obvious huge screen on the first picture. This is all on you OP

Well not really, they sit in another seat and risk someone else coming in whose supposed to be sitting there. Or perhaps that day the cinema is fully booked

I bet everyone else does check their tickets and sits in the correct seat. Just sit in the seat on your ticket, its really not that difficult

Meh, I've had to ask a family to move who were sat on our seats once and it turned out they didn't even have seats for that showing, they'd somehow got in with tickets for the earlier showing they'd booked for and missed. They were entirely CFs and being quite blatant about it and I managed to be polite despite the fact I am a massive cow.

Yes you messed up, you obviously genuinely thought you were in the right seats though so no need for actual seat holder woman to be rude.

Voted unreasonable because you've cut off the part where it says SCREEN

I agree. The OP knows the cinema is never that busy, but the other couple might not know that. I wouldn't want to go and sit in other seats in case they themselves had been booked and I had to move. Very disruptive.

I much prefer bookable seats. I'd be really pissed off if I had a ticket and found the only seats were right by the entrance, so people coming and going, or, in some older cinemas, right on the end of a curved row so you end up with a crick in your neck.

In my local cinema, a lovely independent, I always pick the centre of the front row of the rear stalls as those seats have loads of leg room and are where the sound is at its best.

A is front row

It didn’t say screen though, but Odeon.
Screen would have been much clearer.

Well it doesn’t matter if it’s obvious to everyone else, it’s a genuine mistake on your part, you weren’t rude and moved straight away once confirmed.

The other person was just rude, aggressive and impatient.

Not always.

Where is it not? Why would A be at the back? It’s always at the front

OP I’ve made exactly the same mistake when booking cinema tickets before! I realised as soon as we got in as there were people in the seats I thought I’d booked, but I also didn’t realise that the Odeon rectangle was supposed to represent the screen, and I also assumed the wheelchair accessible seats would be at the front!
Don’t worry, everyone makes mistakes, even perfect mumsnetters (although they’d never admit to it 😉). I’d also have waited for my husband to get back before trying to move 4 drinks, 4 popcorns and 2 young children to the other side of the cinema.

To be fair I regularly go to Odeon and I've never noticed the massive Odeon screen on the booking image 😂 And I do always think the seats look like they are facing the wrong way, so pretty much always nearly make the mistake you made OP!

However there will have been the letters on the end of the rows, otherwise no one would ever find their seats! And whilst I do believe it could have been a genuine mistake, from their perspective they knew those were their seats, and the people sitting in them clearly didnt know as they had to find a member of staff to tell them, which is a load of faff when you know your in the right!

Tickets are all the same price no matter where you sit at all of our local cinemas. Thinking about it I'm in my seventies & cannot recall ever having the choice of cheap vs expensive seats in a cinema. It's not like a gig or a play at the theatre.

Right but at Odeon they are different prices, and its very clear when you book that some are cheaper because they are less popular, which is usually the front

They aren’t in OPs cinema though

Look at the second image from the OP - the row she sat in is clearly marked as more expensive.