How many of you out there in the big wide world were taught that when you are on public transport your supposed give up your seat to a senior citizen, a pregnant lady or somebody with a disability? I’m sure there is more than a few of you who do the right thing.

Okay, what I am about to talk about is something that is the same and yet also slightly different (though what you need to remember is that one of the key things about the movie going experience is who you watch the movie with). Hoyts Cinemas has been my choice of cinema for the best part of twenty years, and unfortunately, on Sunday there was what can be described as a poor customer service experience at an afternoon session for Hidden Figures on Sunday the 12th of February at the Woden Hoyts Cinema.

Now in effort to be organised, the Wednesday before the session I booked tickets over the internet. Come Sunday when I went to the movies with my Mum the all the seats in the row where the wheelchair seating spaces were taken (including the one I had booked for my Mum) and my Mum was asked by the cinema attendant to sit up the back. Not any of the other able-bodied people in the row. Not even the teenagers, who probably should have been told to move by the Cinema Attendant.

Now yes I was given a couple of free tickets, but that is not the point. It comes down to public transport and the rule about giving up your seat senior citizen, a pregnant lady or somebody with a disability, and how it applies to movie cinemas. You need to realise that people with disability who go to the movies want to sit with the people that they went to the movies with.

One last message for Hoyts Australia, this new assigned seating idea is a good one. But you need to realise that when somebody in a wheelchair says that they want to sit in the disable seating area, sell them a ticket that reflects that. Not the seat that is right next to the disabled seating space. Please fix your ticketing software.