Took Rachel and a couple of others to see a special screening of a new Thomas the Tank Engine.
It’s starts at 11, but the cinema opens at 10:40.
Well actually it opened at 10:45. As I had prebooked this shouldn’t have been a problem. However the ticket machine didn’t like my Credit Card. So I ask what to do. I had to join the queue for food (which was by now fairly long). 15 minutes later I get to the front. She said tickets for Wall-E, no I had (and still have) a printout for 4 Thomas tickets. But it didn’t work, so she went to get a manager (who never turned up). The next person had the same issue, but the card worked for her. So she tried mine again and this time it worked (at 11:02). We missed the first 5 minutes thanks to the shower of shit ticketing arrangement.
So after the screening I approached an assistant who claimed I couldn’t get a refund as the film had finished. I should have come out as the film had started (try explaining that to a 3 year old).
After a small queue of similarly disgruntled parents had formed, she decided to try a refund. This did work and the we left, hopefully with a refund on it’s way.
No apologies for the utterly shite ticketing system, or the fact that ticket issues are addressed by the fucking hotdog vendors. Apparantly cos everyone had bought tickets online it was our fault the system failed. I can live with system failures if the backup plan was to use the correct box office. But no, as I said the food stall was where we had to go and wait for all the people infront buying (expensive) food.
I don’t think I’ll be in a rush to revisit Star(sh)city in the near future, well the Vue cinema anyway.