Theater Etiquette

[momrek06]

My family was in London in 2007 and went to see Les Miz!!! We had these awesome seats and were so excited to see it in London after seeing it numerous times on Broadway before it closed.

The row behind us there was a young man about 20-ish that had an awful cough. He coughed all the while we were waiting for the curtain to go up...my fam all looked at each other as he was not even trying to cover his mouth either.

During the whole show ....<cough>, <cough>, <cough>...it was pretty distracting not only to us but others around us.

At intermission 3 of my sisters and I decided we would move to a row up ahead that we "eyed" had 4 empty seats!!! We did and loved the show even more after that as we did not have to put up with all that coughing. My DH and my sons had no problem with their seats despite the coughing....we waved goodbye to them as we took our NEW seats!!!

Not one thing was said to us BUT we knew from the first half of the show that those seats were empty. We wondered the whole time if someone would be coming to eventually sit in them as they might have been late to the show. The theater in London is much smaller than NYC...I was surprised MORE theater-goers were not racing to grab these open sits. Our luck!!

 

[jenny105]

I don't think what you did was intentional but if I were that guy, I would've been annoyed too. Not to the f-bomb capacity but if there are other seats around, I would've wondered why you chose to sit directly in front of me. I try not to even do this to people in a movie theater.

 

[MM27]

I guess you haven't been to a show in a while. We go to Broadway and off-Broadway shows all the time (several a month), and have been doing so for years. If there's empty space around, it's OK to spread out. Friends of mine usher at the Eugene O'Neill theater and see people doing it all the time. None of the ushers mind it as long as you're not in someone else's seat, and you're not moving from the back of the balcony to the orchestra A good example is from this past summer. We went to see Cry-Baby and the theater was half empty so we moved farther down our row to see better. The usher's not only didn't care, but they encouraged it. It's been going on for years. The theater's often upgrade people's seats as well, in order to fill in the orchestra. We're TDF members and were told our Hairspray tickets for this past September would be in the rear mezzanine, yet when we got to the theater we were upgraded to the 7th row orchestra. We only paid $35 a ticket through TDF, so it's not always what you paid for. If there's space, they don't mind.

And it's not the same example, I was talking about complaining. If you're in the seat you paid for, and people from a few seats down move at the last minute and purposely sit in front of a child, you have every right to complain. But if you move your own seats and then someone sits in front of you, you don't have any right to complain since you aren't in your own seats to begin with, and you could always go back to your actual seats if you're so bothered by it

Actually, I have been recently and have been a regular since I was little. Every usher I have ever come across has been very strict about sitting in correct seats. If your seat is being upgraded, that's a different story. The OP wasn't upgraded, they went to a seat they didn't pay for.

Any example can be worked to fit your own agenda I guess. If it's a free for all when empty seats are available, kid or no kid, people have the right then to take the empty seats. Maybe the people that sat in front of the kid were "upgraded".

 

[Wishing on a star]

Wow, so not only did this guy move... but he then 'EXPECTS' that he can reserve the seats in front of him so he can have a better view????? Then, throw in the F-words in a nice public venue...

This guy was completely out of line...

I have no problem with discreetly changing seats in a half-empty venue.
Especially if that means changing center row for side-aisle... which would actually be a demotion, not a free upgrade.

OP, you did nothing wrong... nothing wrong at all...
You mentioned that others seemed to be moving to those aisle seats and that they were filling up... No way would I purposely move to less desirable seats because some jerk thinks he owns the whole place. If you had not taken them, there is a huge chance that some other party would have.

Anyone who thinks that they can expect the seats in front of them to remain empty has some definite issues.

 

[DISUNC]

Do you speak from experience?

Sadly....YES on more than one occasion?

 

[troobabiee7]

Actually, I have been recently and have been a regular since I was little. Every usher I have ever come across has been very strict about sitting in correct seats. If your seat is being upgraded, that's a different story. The OP wasn't upgraded, they went to a seat they didn't pay for.

Then I guess we haven't seen the same shows