May the odds ever be in your favor

My family (ie younger siblings) got hooked on The Hunger Games series thanks to me, especially E, so, when the movie was announced to open her birthday weekend, she immediately knew what she wanted to do: go to the midnight showing.

As soon as tickers were up, I bought them for the theater where E saw the last Harry Potter at midnight.  She'd had a really good experience with the whole waiting-in-line thing for hours and really liked how the theater kept control of the whole evening.

So... the day finally arrived and we'd designed and made t'shirts for ourselves and our favorite District 12 teams.

 E and T decided to go to the theater early to get good spots in the line. I would come up later (with dinner) and then we'd get W who had a birthday party. The plan was we'd hang out in the line, have a good time and then see the movie. Oddly enough, the theater had no line. E and T got there around 6pm expecting there to be a line, but no one was in sight. So, E spread out her blanket, unpacked her backpack and sat in to wait. T waited in the car for a while before joining her. By the time I got up to Layton, around 8, E and T were the ONLY ones there. Seriously. We'd passed other theaters on the way to that one and every single one was full of people and had long happy lines of people. This theater was basically dead. But, we pulled out the Wendy's food we'd picked up and decided to enjoy dinner.

The complete line for "The Hunger Games"

Dinner. That's when we realized there was trouble brewing.  When I went in to get the tickets, I was told that there would be no line until 9:30. Oh, ok. Due to the fact that E had been sitting out there for two hours already, I figured we'd just join her and hang out until the official line was allowed to start. Unfortunately, someone asked the girl in the ticket booth about E, which set the theater workers against us. A guy came out and told us the line didn't start until 9:30 and told us that we were requested to move because we were "making a mess" and "inspiring others to join the line". I told him we'd just finished our French fries and then leave. He sort of grumbled and walked away. At the same time, another worker was standing in front of the exit doors taking a smoking break. She also came over and she told us we were loitering and needed to move right then. Ok, ok. We packed up our fries and went home. E was livid.

We went back to the theater a 9pm to find this scene:

the angry worker sending people away

people walking to the parking lot island after being kicked off the sidewalk

the worker sending more people away from the building

 Literally, until 9:20, no one was allowed to wait for longer than five seconds on the sidewalk in front of the theater. We were all hanging out in the parking lot. Really safe.

At some point, a big group of high schoolers made a break for the sidewalk and stood their ground. Then, everyone else went over and there was nothing for the angry worker to do but hide in the building. With everyone now standing in front of the building in a big herd, there was nothing the workers could do but man the doors and hold them closed until 9:30 when they decided we could go in. There was no line. Eventually,  worker girl slightly opened the doors and told us to line up in front of the two doors. There was pushing and shoving and lots of holding onto the people who wanted to stay together. E managed to get pretty close to the front of the line with W, so I stayed with them while T and M ended up behind me and another group. Right when her cell phone read 9:30, the worker girl opened the door and someone behind me started pushing. All of a sudden I was surrounded my people and and I got to the doorway, I was smashed against the wall because my bag got caught, and I was pushed and shoved into the wall and people bullied their way passed me. I thought M was right behind me when I got through the door but I never saw him. I literally got turned all the way around before I could get my bearings and walk into the building. Once I got in, people were running passed me and shoving to get through the ticket-taker. I calmly kept walking and made it to the theater. One guy ran ahead of me just as I reached the hallway to the theater and he turned around and said to me, "Ha! I beat you!" Wow. Then, as he reached the theater door, he held it open for me. His friends came up and asked him, "What was that?! Why did you let her go in front of you?" He responded, "I can be fast and a polite." Nice.

So, E and W got us the middle-middle row and we sat to wait for 2.5 hours until show-time.

I wish I'd taken a picture of the inside of the theater; it looked like a slumber party. It was full of people sitting, talking, playing games, playing with electronic devices, and generally hanging out.  M and I realized around 11:00 that we are getting old! We were ready to take a nap and all around us were kids who acted like it was 11:00am.

Finally, around midnight, the previews started and we settled in for the movie!

we are now boycotting this theater in Layton