Look. Personally, I would not mind people bringing in a little snack (not a meal from some fast food joint down the street) for themselves IF they also bought some concession from us and IF I knew for a fact they wouldn't leave additional wrappers behind for us to clean up. But, that's not the case. Movie theaters and their employees do not make money off of tickets. Though I agree some ticket prices are very high, that's just a fact. $15 ticket? $1.50 goes to the theater. Whose paycheck will that cover?
If you want your theater to stay open, SUPPORT IT. It's just like any other business. If there's no money coming in, there will be no movie theater. These businesses rely heavily on concession sales. The profit made from concession goes to employee checks, bills (have you seen a theater's electric bill?!?!), buying stock, and the business itself. Theaters cannot stay open without the support of customers.
Please don't try to make a theater employee's job more annoying when they have to kick you out for doing what we warned you not to. We can, and will, remove you from the theater when we catch you bringing in outside food or drinks. Especially alcohol and drugs, but that should be a given. We see/smell it, you're gone, and we'll likely throw in a phone call to the police as well for free. Yes we do check theaters. You want to bring a 3 course meal in so you don't have to pay for concession? Fine. That's okay. You'll be escorted outside for free, and no movie! How's that?
"But concession prices are too high." I understand. If you can't afford it, don't buy concession. But also don't get mad when you get kicked out. We have rules that we follow. Sorry, I'm really not that sorry. Also, saying that we can't make you get rid of your outside food or drinks or kick you out because you paid for it is totally not true. If you want to keep it, that's fine and I won't argue with you about it. But you can't have it in the theater. So you can enjoy it later, you can put it in your car, or you can throw it away. Easiest choice is to not bring it at all. We remember faces.
"I would rather have more expensive tickets than expensive concession items." Sorry, not how that works. We hardly get anything from movie tickets, like I said. How else do you think film companies, etc, get paid? The money goes somewhere--just not to us. And if you're in a town where the theater has low ticket prices and decent concession prices, you're lucky and shouldn't be complaining in the first place.
Please don't bring in outside food or drinks if they're illegal, going to distract other customers, more than a small snack, if you're not going to buy anything, or if you're going to leave your trash everywhere. Making our jobs harder doesn't help out anyone.
