Warner Village Makes Me Mad!
Either they allow you to choose your own seats as you walk into the theatre, OR, they allow you to pick your own seats in advance according to availability. Wouldnt this be better than the current “lottery system” they use now???
When you are buying tickets, the ticketing staff always guarantee that all seats are of equal viewing quality (100% BS) or they tell you that their crappy computer system only does random ticketing (99% BS). Why cant I pick my own seat? My wife and I complained about this issue to the Warner Management last year. They responded that their computer system was inflexible and they are looking into purchasing another one. Well, I havent noticed any changes. Am I the only one pissed? If the computer system is inflexible - then return to a paper and pen system! Are we being unreasonable?
Fixed seating realyl sucks, but I think most cinemas or at least multiplexes in the world do it now. Convenience and profit over customer comfort. It allows them to sell all the tickets properly and easily.
Warner sucks particularly. I hate the atmosphere at warner village, it’s more expensive than any other place, you have to queue longer and they sell out more.
Have you tried the telephone booking system? My husband and I go every weekend and we always get good seats. I think the pre-selected seating arangement is better than having to line up early just so you can fight for a good seat.
Just wanted to emphasize to all that my wife and I DO PREFER the reserved seating method that exists in many theatres now. However, why does Warner just rely on the computer to choose for you?! It is like the roll of the dice. You have no idea where your “ideal” seating is until you walk into the theatre…blah.
When you buy tickets in other places, the ticketing staff ask you which area you would prefer to sit in (middle, side, front, back)and then once you choose your block of seats the staff write the seat number on your ticket - in pen. I think they might still do this at the ChungChuan Theatre (Printemps Dept Store in Taipei).
Maybe the solution is to try visiting other theatres. Their ticket prices are slightly cheaper, but I wish they would do some renovations. Anyone have a suggestion regarding nice, clean, comfy Taipei theatres?
A comment to EyeOpener, we are considering the home theatre/DVD setup…
When they give you your ticket, you can tell them you don’t like the seats and they will find another pair for you. Just tell in what direction you want to seat in relation to the seats they give you. If you want a little more towards the front, just tell them. If you want more towards the middle, just tell them. I’ve been going to warner for close to a year now and I havn’t ever had a problem.
To crazy laowai: what you say seems to contradict what CuriousGeorge is saying. Which is correct?
For myself, I used to watch movies a lot, and at warner village, too, but the higher prices and lower quality films have pushed me to the second runs out in the suburbs (two for one deals).
When I do venture back to warner for a film, I am sorry to confess that my girlfriend and I are the people you see who waltz in and pick anywhere they choose to sit. If ticketed people come by, we make way, but the fixed seating doesn’t seem to be enforced.
Have they gotten stricter back here? I recall that in Europe, movie seating is also fixed and remember buying tickets from scalpers!
It’s good to see that Warner values your business, C L. For us, the ticket people make sure they ink our tickets with the “NO REFUND FOR THESE COMPLAINERS” stamp.
Suggestion for those who want to preselect your seats, have an idea of which letter and which number you want first.
DVD players are looking mighty fine at this point in time …
I have to say, Warner Village’s policy of asking guests to leave through an unfinished concrete stairwell, down several flights of stairs, into a side lane where you may find yourself at the mercy of the elements, is hardly a proper way to treat Taipei’s highest-charged moviegoers. I think I’m going to “play lame” in the future, and leave the same way I came in… It just pisses me off. Anybody else feel the same way?
Yeah, and what’s with having just two retards selling tickets on a weekend night? We tried to see “Almost Famous” a few weeks ago and missed the first ten minutes because the wunderkids in the ticket booth were having some kind of an argument, keeping a long line of people waiting. Talk about professional!
I’m just glad there are plenty of decent movie theaters in this town and that I won’t have to waste any more of my time and money at Warner.
I’ve been hearing lots of horror stories about Warner Village on the internet, but everytime I go there I have a good experience. I hardly ever exit on the ground floor, I usually exit on the second floor and have no problems getting back into the building (the exit to the second floor is still outside, but at least it’s covered).
I have, however, had bad experiences at other theatres around town. The worst ones are the ones in Hsimen. One theatre had its doors open up to the noisy outside, so whenever anybody came in or out you could hear all sorts of noises. Another theatre I went to had problems just playing the movie (the movie somehow burned up inside the projector). I have never had these kinds of problems at Warner.
True enough, Warner Village isn’t as bad as some of the other places, but they need to raise the bar a little higher than the local standard if they’re going to impress me. I had the misfortune to be sitting next to an exit at the Ambassador Movie Theatre in Ximending during a showing of “The Sixth Sense”. As anyone who has seen this movie knows, the last five minutes of the movie is crucial to its resolution. Can you believe the attendant/janitor opened the door next to my seat, wide open to the bright lights, noise and pedestrian traffic of the hallway, and when I protested that the movie hadn’t finished yet, he said “Chabudo…Mei guanxi…” The two phrases I hate the most in this country! Granted, Warner’s standards are higher than this, but that should go without saying.
What irks me is that there is no apparent rhyme or reason for this policy. I have, on occasion, been let out the way I came in, even though all the shops in the mall were closed. It has also occurred when all the shops were still open. I have also been directed to the back stairway in identical situations. I would love to know what their official policy is. Warner Managers, are you listening?
No. Unfortunately the Warner managers don’t listen very well. I have actually spoken face-to-face with one of them last year and she didnt seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed…
I think the Warner wunderkids are being paid the same low minimum wage rates as those in McD, therefore, I give them the benefit of the doubt. I remember back in my highschool days when friends worked the theatres and they probably werent 100% professional 100% of the time.
Nevertheless, too many youths in the building is not an acceptable excuse for Warner. Warner seems to lack policy communications with their customers AND the enforcement of standard service levels. It’s like they dont care. And it shows.
Yesterday went to Warner Village at 10:45 and was dismayed to find about 70 people in line with only one (rather slow) girl in the information booth selling tickets for all of the movie theatres. I soon realized that I would not get to see the beginning of the movie I wished to see, so I gave up. I did ask the manager why not one of the cashier stations was open, and she said that it was due to budget cutbacks. This from the most expensive movie theatre in Taiwan! Jeez.
They seemed to have enough budget for the lovefest they gave Ah-Tang-Ge (Tom Cruise) last night. How much money do they pull in from promotions like that? A pretty penny, I’m sure.
By the way, is anybody else disgusted at the way the local media fawns over Tom Cruise and others of his ilk? I mean, I can understand the local teenyboppers going ga-ga, but surely the media needs to display a little more self-consciousness in it’s reporting. Nancy T. Lu , as always, reported breathlessly on the whole affair, while some of the other “reporters” were busy making moronic requests of T.C. “Please congratulate my boss on the air for finally getting married after ten years!” What a silly twit.
The cry of “The economy is bad” and resulting “budget cutbacks” are pure gold for Taiwanese entrepreneurs, who have found that they can stop investing in improving their businesses, lay off necessary staff and do all kinds of things to increase their profits, all in the seemingly universally-accepted name of “budget cutbacks”, and no-one will question them. It’s “the trend” lately and businesses are just lapping it up into their bank accounts.
As for Warner Village, it’s really a shame that they don’t listen to their customers. My biggest beef there is the computer-generated seating. Everywhere else you can asked for the seat you want, and in the US you just sit wherever you want, but at Warner Village you don’t even get a choice.
I usually request a seat in the front portion of center, and sometimes they’ll give it to me, but usually they’ll say “We have no control over the seating. The computer does it.” Oh, well.
They don’t fix the customer service problems because they don’t seem to be problems to most Taiwanese.
I’ve been to Warner many times and always have had a beef about leaving through the fire exit, but my local gf doesn’t think anything of it. When I make comments about it she thinks I’m belly aching.
She can’t help it, she grew up seeing pictures in XiMenDing where the only exits are the narrow, cluttered, dank, urine soaked, stairwells leading to drizzly, dark alley ways. That kinda stuff is normal - what we call bowels they call back streets. The standards are irreparably skewed (at least in this lifetime).
What do they care about what you want? They’re a business, and I’m afraid you, I and the other few hundred thousand foreigners here do not really constitute anything more than a blip in their regular customer base. Think yourself lucky they even ran an English subtitled version for a week. For Warner, that’s actually pretty good.
Look at some of the foreign-based supermarkets here – OK, Carrefour used to be pretty good for a very few French products, but it’s fallen off over the last few years. Geant never even tried stocking anything other than local produce. Costco? GIve them another few years and most of the good stuff will no longer be available.
You’re in a tiny minority here and our demographic is simply not worth bothering about from a business point of view.
were busy making moronic requests of T.C. “Please congratulate my boss on the air for finally getting married after ten years!” What a silly twit.