Cinemas want you to pre-book your tickets. Historically, cinemas have also not made this job particularly easy.
Itās a difficult piece for me to write this, given that I love the cinema, and that picturehouses around the world are in such challenging times. I still contend though that sometimes, the modern multiplex can be its own worst enemy.
There’s a video down at the bottom of this post where I natter about this a little bit more, but my technically excellent local cinema, which I’ve been a patron of since the 1990s when it first opened, isn’t short of its annoying quirks. An unlimited pass that now has restrictions on which seat you can book, pic ‘n’ mix that lists the individual calories per sweet (can’t touch the stuff ever again now) and an Argos-style way of ordering your food and drink. On the (significant) plus side, it’s usually a wonderful place to watch a film. And they sell coffee again, thank goodness.
To the point of this article though: the parallel evolution of the multiplex cinema and ticket booking systems has created a strange world where what should be simple, generally isn’t. That there’s some odd twist in the system that makes things that bit more difficult than they should be.
Here, then, in rough historical order, is a look at how cinemas contend to make buying a ticket a lot less easy than it should be.
The historical challenge
I’m putting this first to get everything into context. As much as I may sit and moan about awkward websites, I’ve recently picked up a fresh batch of vintage film magazines. Leafing through the April 1965 issue of Photoplay magazine, in which Peter Sellers declares he’s now looking to be happy again (ulp) is a full-page advert for Richard Brooks’ film, Lord Jim, tarring Peter O’Toole, James Mason, Curt Jurgens and Eli Wallach. To prebook a ticket, you could toddle along to the box office, if you werenāt willing to wait 35 years for online booking.
That, or – get this! – there’s a cut out order form at the bottom of the advert. You had to fill in the form, write a cheque, put it in the postbox and – in days when the postal service was perhaps more reliable – hope that the tickets popped through your letterbox in time.


Can you imagine that in the modern day? Marvel launching a huge new promotion for its next film, with an invitation to mail order your tickets so you don’t miss out? I’d love to see it.
Below is the form, from a film magazine that also seemed quite keen to sell me a number of hair products, and a very uncomfortable-looking bra. Copies of those adverts available on request.
The telephone method
We skate forward now to the 1990s, and the worst ever way invented to book a cinema ticket. Ever.
Kids, there was a time when the world wide web wasn’t at our fingertips and we had these things called landline phones. Soon, companies caught onto the idea that it’d be cheaper if they didn’t put a human being at the end of them, and instead a computerised system of sorts. Now, we’re very used to the idea of pressing 1 for this, or 2 for that. But the Warner chain of cinemas used to have a system that was voice activated, and it was absolute hell on earth.
The way it worked: you rang up, and when the message read out the film you wanted to book a ticket for, you said “yes please”. Then you had to individually select the number of tickets, input your card details, and take out a degree in computer science.
The problem was that the system was fairly crude in the 1990s, and if a badger farted in a forest some 30 miles away from where you were making the call, the sodding thing decided you’d said “yes please”. If someone in the background thought about making a cup of coffee, the indistinguishable sound of this nonetheless registered with the phone system clearly purchased from the lowest bidder, and interpreted this as “yes please”.
The only thing the system didn’t pick up as you saying “yes please” was you saying “yes please”. There was a time it genuinely took me over an hour to book a ticket. The film was, if memory serves, Demolition Man, so I didn’t entirely begrudge it.
But still.
The long code method
There was a moment in time where the world wide web and your mobile phone hadn’t quite intersected to the degree they have now. Now, we’re well trained in purchasing a ticket online, and waving a code that’s sent to our phone to the human/computer on the door.
It’s not that long ago, however, that the QR Code ticket wasn’t a thing, and instead, it was the Long Code Of Death (LCoD) you needed to gain access to a cinema.
As such, gradually, cinemas decided to remove human beings from their front desks and introduce low rent Daleks instead. The idea being you input the LCoD you’d been emailed, your tickets would be printed out. Which would be a nice and simple system, were it not for the fact that one chain went with a 32 digital code. It doesn’t sound like the most difficult job, but when there’s a huge queue of people behind you and you’re frantically trying to accurately copy 32 digits of nonsense into a not-very-responsive touch screen ticket device, it doesn’t do the whole ‘escape and relax’ thing a whole lot of good.
Bonus points too for the chains that decided to introduce such machines with relatively small fonts, just for some added fun in the foyer.
Slapping on a booking fee
The worst crime of the lot. Worse even, thinking about it, than having to send a form, remember if youāve got a chequebook, and hope your order makes it through the post. The booking fee should simply be called ‘the price rise by stealth’, and be done with it.
The core idea behind a cinema is that they, surely, want you to visit their premises. Words have been poured out into the world about how cinemas are feeling the pressure, and need support. I, for one, am happy to give it.
As an experiment, I went to the website for my local Odeon, which tells me that it’s always cheaper to book tickets online rather than in person for its venues. Fair enough. Two standard seats for a Monday night screening, £14 apiece (in Dudley!). And what’s this? A non-negotiable £1 per ticket premium, described as the ābooking fee'.
This isn’t exclusive to Odeon, but I’ve got to pick on someone. It’s also clearly bled over from the music industry as well, where it’s the norm to charge you an extra for the convenience of buying one of the tickets that a promoter is trying to sell you. You need a PhD in something to find a way to buy a ticket without a booking fee, it seems.
Note that most cinema operators have taken staff out of their operations as part of the growing computerising of their operations, and so they’re saving with one hand, charging with the other. Sure, I get it. It’s the popcorn thing. They’ve got to make their money somewhere.
But still, I propose this. If there is an unavoidable booking fee involved somewhere, then call it what it is: part of the actual sodding ticket price.
Still love you, cinemas. But sheesh…