Alamo Drafthouse | US chain now lets you use your phone during screenings

Alamo Drafthouse, the US cinema chain that banned mobile phone use is now, bizarrely, encouraging mobile phone use. Must admit, I’ve got a little jealous sometimes of the audience behaviour management that’s been deployed by the Alamo Drafthouse chain. The US cinemas have become famed for not allowing people to use their phones during the ... Alamo Drafthouse | US chain now lets you use your phone during screenings

Alamo Drafthouse, the US cinema chain that banned mobile phone use is now, bizarrely, encouraging mobile phone use.

Must admit, I’ve got a little jealous sometimes of the audience behaviour management that’s been deployed by the Alamo Drafthouse chain. The US cinemas have become famed for not allowing people to use their phones during the screening of a film, and even when people are ordering food and drink mid-movie, they have to do it via a piece of paper.

I’m still not entirely on board with the old ordering food during a film thing, but it’s a decent trade for no phones.

Or it was. It turns out the chain is altering its latter policy, in part to facilitates the former. As of this month, patrons of Alamo Drafthouse will now be able to pull out their phones in the middle of a film, and order their beverages and sustenance via their device. It’s an entire flip of the company’s model, as pen and paper ordering will no longer be used at all.

Here’s its FAQ on the matter.

Instead, patrons have to scan a QR code with the device set to dark screen mode. The chain insists that its team will still police other uses of mobile devices, but no longer will customers have to keep their phone tucked away during a movie.

This has, from what I can gleam on the other side of the channel, gone down like a particularly stinky fart in a relatively small car. Mooching at the Alamo Drafthouse Reddit, and there’s already talk of petitions and boycotts. That said, most talks of petitions and boycotts never really materialise. Still, there’s discontent, and the move is making headlines amongst the US trade press.

In the UK, to my knowledge, there’s no chain at all that enforces a no phone policy. Mind you, by the sounds of it, there’s no chance in the US that does that any more either. Even the occasional press screening I end up going to now, there’s a one in three chance someone will yank their phone out in the middle.

Maybe we should just cut the inconvenience of showing the film, and have some screenings that are phone use only? Any takers?