Over enthusiastic sweet rustling, loud popcorn crunching and canoodling couples will soon become a thing of the past, as Empire Cinemas launches ‘cinema referees’, to ensure cinemagoers not adhering to cinema etiquette pay the penalty for their actions.
Empire Cinemas, the largest independently-owned cinema chain in the UK, has surveyed cinemagoers to discover what distracts them most whilst watching a film. Keen to answer the cries of film lovers right across the UK, the cinema referees service will kick off in Empire Cinemas on April 1st. The film wardens will be present in select film screenings, handing out yellow and red cards to those who are causing disruptions. Excessive shouting, aggressive behaviour and angry customers will warrant a straight red.
The research into the cinematic experience found that chitter chatter during viewings is the most annoying disruption, with a staggering 67% of Brits choosing this as the most inconvenient action.1 Expectedly, the use of mobile phones ranked second, as almost half (49%) of Brits admitted being irritated by fellow customers tweeting, typing and posting during a film.
As a nation of foodies it appears our over enthusiastic snacking seems to make for some uncomfortable cinema viewing, almost half (49%) of customers agreed incessantly loud sweet rustling is the third most distracting disruption. Coming in fourth place, a further 40% of the UK admitted overly loud munching of popcorn was poor cinema etiquette. Indeed it seems some of the eating habits of British viewers can be distracting, despite it being the number one drive of cinemagoers.
Laughing too loudly was found to irritate almost one fifth (18%) of viewers, whilst canoodling couples packing on the PDA during movies angered 15% of film lovers. Those getting a little too carried away with making themselves at home annoyed 7% of viewers, as people taking off their shoes was ranked the 10th most annoying habit.
The top five most irritating habits of cinemagoers:
- Other people talking during a screening
- Other people using mobile phones
- Sweet rustling
- People eating popcorn loudly
- People laughing too loudly
Jon Nutton, Marketing Director of Empire Cinemas, said “Our primary goal is to guarantee our customers have the ultimate cinema experience and cinema etiquette plays a huge part in this. The shared experience, and therefore audience behaviour, is of vast importance and the introduction of our new cinema referees will ensure enjoyable viewing is had by all.”
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