I'm "old" (mid-40s) and cannot remember the last time I didn't pre-purchase a movie ticket. The movie theater I go to the most (Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco) rarely has anyone in line at the box office when I walk through there. That box office is usually only staffed by one person, which should tell us something about how many people need in-person service.

I'm finding that more and more, when I impulsively go to the theater and try to buy tickets at the door... I always find the only tickets available are horrible, like in the front row to the side. You want like F-6 and F-7 and get A-2 and B-2.

And if I even accept this, the people in the choice seats invariably show up right when all the trailers are wrapping up.

so - people buy tickets ahead of time, and it might be the only way to watch it from a reasonable seat.

This probably doesn't apply to off-hours like tuesday afternoon or whatever.

I don’t remember the last time I bought a ticket at the cinema. I like picking my own seats online.

I'm the same way, as I'm terrible at scheduling and often don't arrive on time for things I book in advance. So, I'll tend to show up at the theater and see whatever looks good that's coming up soon. But, I get the impression a lot of people do buy in advance these days.

But, I love the idea of a theater almost entirely to myself.

I assume everyone is using something like MoviePass because it’s way cheaper than paying full price. And they don’t allow you to pre-purchase tickets.

> I'm old and have never pre-purchased a movie ticket in my life.

I’m old and have always pre-purchased tickets, even in the 90s, as that’s the way to get better seats.

Do people really just show up and hope for the best anymore?

The "box office" is not even really a thing anymore at most theaters. And the single person you talk to inside that is the "box office" just uses the same system you can reserve seats yourself on your own time?

Pretty much every theater is reserved seating these days. Why would I risk showing up last minute on a whim and end up in a horrible seat near the front of the screen?

I exclusively buy tickets online, and whatever seats show up as empty online are empty when we show up.

Same here, gen-x, in what concerns cinema, sometimes I do reserve if it is in high demand, but that is about it.

Quite a bit in the early showing for good movies. Project Heil Mary has continued to sell all the good seats out and I’m bad at planning ahead for entertainment. It usually isn’t obvious because most of the movies have been atrocious in the last several years.

I haven’t bought a seat at the theater in over a decade

And the online process shows you which seats are already filled and I base my decision on that when there is assigned seating. One thing peculiar is that the theatres are not often as filled as the seat map shows, makes me think that an even newer generation of the movie ticket subscribers (AMC A-List) are reserving seats and changing plans