For nine months now, I’ve been partaking in the phenomenon of catching free advanced screenings of films I’m anticipating. The experience has come with its ups and downs, so I thought some of you might like to know a little of what’s involved, since the old saying goes that nothing in life is truly free.

The whole process begins with access. If you live in a big city, odds are that you have the same sort of opportunities I do. Screenings can sometimes happen the night before a film opens, or other times a few weeks in advance. Presentations are put on by radio stations, tv stations, local businesses, and the like as a way to advertise and stoke word-of-mouth for the film. The trick is keeping an eye out for such things. It can sometime involve liking something on Facebook, creating a particular retweet on Twitter, or entering you name and email address into a draw.

In short – the ticket never comes to you; you always go looking for it.

The next step has been particular to my experience. Depending on the film and the timing of the advance show, desire for access can run high. Take Monday night for instance where I got in on the premiere of HUNGER GAMES. Seeing people I know trying to get in on the event too is a little tough to shoulder sometimes. Passes come in pairs, and given that I am married to a movie nerd, dibs on that second pass are assumed. So while I’d like to offer up my plus-one to many of my good friends, it only happens some of the time.

That doesn’t stop them from trying and repeatedly making their hopes known, mind you. Knowing this is sometimes tricky, because for all I know I have five friends trying to get into the same show. So even if Lindsay does drop out at the last minute, how does one play favorites? This likely wouldn’t be a problem for many of you folks, but it’s an odd downside to having a circle of friends all interested in the same thing.

Back to the matter at hand – tickets acquired, guest confirmed, time to hit the theatre. When time comes to hit said theatre, it doesn’t quite work the same as a regular trip to the multiplex. Remember when I said that nothing is free? Well these showings might not cost you money, but they do cost you something else: time.

The PR groups that run these events want the house as full as possible, and the only way to assure that is to oversell the event. I don’t have the number handy, but I have to believe that at least 25% more passes are handed out than the joint can hold. They state clearly that admission is not guaranteed, so if it’s something one wants to see badly, the onus is on them to make it happen. What this means is getting to the theatre early…way early…at least an hour early.

Ask yourself what your time is worth. If you live in Toronto, is an hour of your time worth $13? If so, then skip the free show and go when it’s convenient and you can walk in fifteen minutes ahead of the credits.

But assuming you got lucky and won a contest, decided which of your friends you like best, and got to the theatre an extra hour ahead of time, all should be smooth sailing right? Not quite. There’s one last thing – your cell phone.

More often than not, the final condition to seeing a movie early-and-free is to hand your cell phone over to a private security company the studio hired to work anti-piracy. They make you check them, like coats at a nightclub, and keep them in paper bags. See, the studios believe that you might possibly record some of the film ahead of time and put it up on YouTube or the like – even though instances of that are decreasing dramatically. So to prevent such copyright infringement, they go totalitarian and get all phones handed over. Sometimes this leads to unpleasant incidents.

Before I leave the cell phone issue, I am puzzled by one thing. Even after they make everyone hand in their phones – phones they remind you they are not responsible for losing by the by – you’d think that would be the end of security. Nope. Not only do they wand you with a metal detector on the way in, but they also have their guards in the cinema, sometimes moving up and down the aisles, watching for any stray technology that might have eluded their crack team.

So to summarize: You’ve entered at least half a dozen contests, chosen one friend from a gaggle of “pick-me’s”, got to an oversold multiplex more than an hour early, and don’t even have your mobile gizmo to entertain you or allow any contact with the outside world.

But hey…on the bright side…you saved yourself the price of admission!

36 Replies to “I Wanna Be Free – The Ups and Downs of Advanced Screenings”

  1. This is pretty much why I never enter contests, that and I happen to be of the belief that I never win (unless it’s something of my ability (like when I used to play chess competitively)).

    So to answer your issues with some of my personal responses to the situation:

    1. I’ve won. Who gets the plus one. The misses gets first dibs. If she refuses then you play a round-robin with those who you know are interested in that evening as best you can and never feel guilty.

    2. Get there early: ok, just make sure your +1 is with you to assure that boredom doesn’t cause you to nod off and be mistaken for a drunken hobo, or have a nice phone on hand that you can look like a six year old playing video games.

    3. Cellphone: turn it off, shove in pocket and lie when they ask if you have one. It’s then your responsibility and I’m guessing you have the self control to leave it off for the runtime of the event.

    NOW… my response to this whole setup:

    Don’t go. Unless I’m going to be invited for a press event (which I have been, and if I lived in LA, Toronto or London) then I’d rather just wait for the release so I can do (as you say) and show up 15 mins to showtime and pay my fee…

    Now this brings in economics. Luckily as a single man I can decide to spend my money on that as opposed to going out and getting laid and such. Until that financial hinderance comes about I can keep my high road and enjoy my movies on a weekly basis.

    1. You play round-robin with your friends? Do you choose what you get them to play round-robin at? If so, I vote full-contact lawn bowling.

      Getting there early is no problem for me (I’m early for everything, sometimes obnoxiously so), but “early” for these events has turned into a whole hour before showtime.

      I agree with you about the cellphone bit.

      There have been times where I’ve decided to sit it out, either due to timing, to a project I want to support at the box office, or to apathy. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t mean this post to sound like a ‘woe-is-me’, just that to express that with everything comes a catch.

      Thanks for reading bro!

  2. I do go to some advance screenings (probably many of the same ones you attended) and your points are valid. I tend not to go to the ‘Blockbuster’ movie screening like Hunger Games for example, since I know it will be a hassle. I do go to the smaller ones so at least I won’t get the phones taken away from me. And I tried to get to the screenings an hour early which could be difficult due to work. All for the price of a couple of free tickets.

    Sometimes an advance screening do come with some advantages like the director would show up for a quick Q&A afterwards. I usually enjoy those quite a bit.

    1. It’s almost comical that I haven’t met you yet.

      The funny thing about the phones is that it’s an unpredictable detail. They let us keep them for HUGO, but told us to pony up for 30 MINUTES OR LESS.

      I hear you though – if a writer or director is going to be at an advance showing, it’s more worthwhile and I’d make the effort…certainly more so than just for the stars.

    2. Yes, it’s pretty amazing we haven’t met yet especially we seem to go to the same places (advance screening, Lightbox, etc…)

      I was at the 30 Minutes or Less screening too, and I was shocked to learn that they want our phones. I said to the security guard “Are you serious? For this?” Anyway, I think it really depends on the studio, and how comfortable they are with certain films. They don’t care about smaller releases or art house stuff, but it’s a different game for blockbusters.

    3. I’ll have to make it a point to get you out to the bar sometime and introduce you to the others.

      Now that I think about it, THE ARTIST let us keep our phones too. The funny thing about surrendering the phones is that you’d think that would preclude the lurking security dudes. I sometimes find them more distracting than an LED lighting up.

      No such luck.

  4. Nice write up Ryan.. I agree with it all.
    There are a few costs that you forgot:
    1. Transportation – by TTC (if you don’t have a Metropass), that’s $2.60? each way. – by car there’s gas + parking (some people know the free spots which I don’t, Scotiabank $5 w/ validation & AMC Y&D $6 at Ryerson)
    2. Food – some people eat beforehand, or bring their own snack. If you buy food there since you were in such a rush to get there 1 hr beforehand & waited in line for your ticket and checking your phone, then you drop another $10+ for pop & snack.
    The best part of the screenings is seeing the movie + meeting new people or seeing friends that you already met at the screenings before. I keep thinking that within the next year the whole theater is going to know everyone by name 🙂

    1. Welcome to The Matinee Glenn.

      You’re right to point out that the best part of the experience is seeing the film and the company we keep, but those are things that could be had with the price of a regular ticket a few days or weeks later..with a few less hassles too.

      As to the parking/transit (Which streetcar are you riding? Fare is $3 these days mate!) and the food, those are givens…but givens I am willing to deal with for a good night out. After all, as Alfred Hitchcock once said “A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it”

  5. I’ve actually stopped trying to get into advanced screenings that I am not directly invited to by studios with guaranteed seating as distribution or press. I find that the time required to line up in advance has gone from 45 minutes to well over an hour in Toronto. You shouldn’t have to line up an hour before the tickets are handed out, to then hope you get a ticket and spend another hour waiting for the film to start. And when it comes to certain studios, overselling by 25% is generous…I think it’s more like 40-50% in some cases.

    Reclaiming phones is always a nightmare at screenings, BUT I’d rather wait 15 mins to get a phone than have some idiot texting through the movie.

    I think there are studios that do advanced screenings well with set caps on the number of tickets handed out through different avenues, multiple screenings with Q&As who are genuinely interested in word of mouth advertising (like for Attack the Block, A Better Life, eOne has great screenings), and those that do them poorly who oversell the number of tickets or don’t correctly weigh demand or use it as a publicity stunt vs word-of-mouth marketing (majority of Alliance screenings IMO).

    So my decisions are mostly made by studio now, if I even bother at all.

    1. I thought I was estimating a bit low with 25%…good point.

      And I can’t believe I forgot about the line before the line! That’s possibly the craziest part, its like people camping out in front of an arena to get the good general admission spot when the doors open for the concert.

      You raise a good point that knowing there are no phones inside is a comfort since no LED’s will light up. I do however wish we could meet a compromise and say, you can keep it but once you pass through these doors it is turned off and stays off.

      I do believe I will be paying close attention to which studio hosts the showing from now on.

      Thanks for the comment!

  6. While the cellphone thing is a pain, I find that the free screenings cost me in other ways. Time is a big factor in deciding whether I want to accept free passes, and not just in regards to the time you waste lining up. Although Toronto is film rich city, it is really geared towards a downtown lifestyle. Living in the burbs in the West and working in the burbs of the East is not always conducive to enjoying free screenings.

    For example, I recently won passes to see The Raid this Thursday but realized that I could not go as there was no one to look after the kid on that night. Even if I was able to secure a babysitter, the cost to drive downtown after work and park pretty much makes up, if not exceeds, the cost of the free film ticket. Plus, I also have to factor in the cost of a quick bite to eat (even if it is street meat) into the whole equation. It is a vicious cycle, but as you stated, the fact that I save the price of the admission sometimes makes it all worth it in a weird way. Or at least that is what I tell myself…

    1. See, in your case, I’d say you are better served by the opposite extreme. For you, to pay the extra few bucks to see an AVX show with assigned seating is a better value than free. That way, you wouldn’t have to waste the extra hour-plus lining up and/or holding seats…you could show up five minutes before showtime knowing you’re sitting in seats 11 and 12.

      Funny the way that works, ain’t it?

  7. Believe it or not, sometimes we get advanced screenings way down here in the sticks. I’m sure they’re not the insane hoopla that you get in the big city of Toronto, and that’s probably why we’ve always had a blast.

    We ignore the ones advertised on the radio, which are usually just for the latest family film or romcom. We use to have a friend of friend who could acquire any number of tickets she wanted. So when we went to an advance screening of the first Transformers, we were just asked “Hey, you guys want tickets?” There was a group of about 20 of us, and though we had to stand in line for about an hour, we had a great time goofing off and making our “seating chart” plan once we go into the theater.

    Before that, she had gotten us tickets for Grindhouse, which was just three of us that time. But we still made a night of it, went to dinner right by the theater, left our cell phones locked securely in the car, then had a great time standing in line, acting out our favorite Tarantino scenes (yep, we’re those people).

    Sadly, I missed out on a early screening of Zombieland when my friend (who runs an annual haunted house) was sent a ton of tickets, along with other promotional stuff. I’m still sad about that one.

    1. Is Little Rock “the sticks”?

      Leaving the cellphone out of the equation is preferable, except in the way that sometimes you want it to be able to co-ordinate with others running behind/further back in line.

      Pardon me while i get the Toronto folk to start performing interpretive dance versions of David Fincher scenes.

  8. I’ve been to a few advanced screenings back from 2003 to 2005. Among them were for films like The Motorcycle Diaries, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and Happy Endings. The last of which included a Q&A with actor Jesse Bradford whom I got to chat with for a bit.

    They were enjoyable as both The Life Aquatic and The Motorcycle Diaries were seen with a full crowd. The former had a mixed reception while the latter had a much better reception. For Happy Endings, there weren’t a lot of people there but it was still good fun.

    At least they weren’t test screenings which I would implore everyone to just simply avoid. I went to a test screening for Love, Actually. I thought it was an alright film but I didn’t really enjoy it when I was watching it. I found the whole experience to be awkward. Then after the film stopped, we all have to write-in some questionnaires and all that bullshit. It is truly a terrible thing to be apart of.

    1. I did a test screening once for a terrible Canadian film called FOOLPROOF. I still haven’t been able to get the taste of that out of my mouth. There’s something that seems inherently *wrong* about creating a piece of art and then road-testing it to random people to see where you need to make changes.

  10. Haha, this makes me a little glad to live in a small town with no working cinema, and the closest-but-really-an-hour-away cinema is not advanced enough to show early screenings (or The Artist, for that matter). Sounds like a very interesting world…

  11. While I live in Fresno, I understand what you’re going through.

    Our city receives a solid amount of “free” screenings — and many individuals – like yourself – stand in long lines to gain entry, and sometimes don’t get in.

    I suppose an upside to being a member of the press is that you’re under the jurisdiction of the studios. They invite you to the screenings, you don’t go looking for them.

    Also, no one gets their phones taken away. Security wands you and walks around from time to time, but that’s about it.

    Look man, if you’re not having a good time, I recommend not going. Too much of contemporary cinema is aggravating enough to be frustrated with the process of attending a movie.

    1. In many cases I’d love to go the press screening route, since things there are far calmer. Unfortunately around here, press screenings happen during the day…so having a day job and all makes things a bit tricky.

      That said, I think certain films play better with the energy of an enthusiastic crowd (comedies for instance).

      And to be clear, I am having a good time at these. Writing this piece was just a way of shed light on the experience and painting the whole picture, not an effort to vent. I’ve tried to stop ranting about things as I swear them off – such as how you’ll sometimes see people on Twitter declare “UNFOLLOW!”.

      Just wanted to share – not to slam.

    2. I’m going to the same events you are. But there’s just a row blocked off for us – with an enthusiastic crowd intact.

      At these screenings, do they not have a row for press?

  12. I have a possibly odd question: what happens if you tell them you didn’t bring your cellphone? Half the time – MORE than half the time, actually – I don’t even take my phone with me when I leave the house. That’s just how I am. I like being phone-free sometimes. So, if you say you didn’t bring it, do they believe you? Frisk you? Deny you entrance?

    1. They check your bag and wand you with a metal detector upon entering. So if you’re a good liar and *really* good at hiding it in your bag, you might be able to sneak it in – but once inside don’t dare think about pulling it out – they’ll bounce you (click the article I linked to mid-post)

      I’d prefer to leave it at home or in the car, however at least half the time I want to use it to co-ordinate with others who are coming.

  13. I ‘sort of’ know what you’re talking about since I regularly represent Sound on Sight at press screenings, though not entirely, if only because my experiences are different.

    First and foremost, it’s pretty rare that I’m sent to see a ‘big’ movie. The podcast hosts usually see those themselves cause they’ll talk about about the movie on an upcoming episode of the show. I’ll see the QuĂ©bec indies, foreign festival darlings whose Montreal theatrical release is forthcoming and the occasional Hollywood film but even then it’s usually the medium sized film. I think the only huge movie I saw in advance was ‘John Carter’.

    It’s pretty sweet because a)it’s never full (there are only so many movie critics in MontrĂ©al. It’s big but it’s not Toronto or Vancouver) so b) I can arrive 5-10 minutes beforehand, sign my name the media I work for, they serve free coffee, I sit down wherever the hell I want and simply let the movie soak in.

    Sometimes you’ll need to email your name for a reservation for a big film. That had to be done for ‘John Carter’ and, oddly enough, for ‘Secret World of Arrietty’.

    On a funny side note, one that maybe indicates how interested I am in Hunger Games, a couple weeks ago it was time for that movie’s press screening. This being MontrĂ©al, there were of course screenings in English and for the dubbed French version. On the morning I got to the cinema, there was maybe a 40 minute wait (give your cell phone, here’s a press kit, sign this paper promising you won’t walk about the movie until whenever) before a lady comes out of the room and says ‘Oops, there was a mixup, I only have the dubbed French version this morning. Sorry!’
    I left!

  14. Holy cow! I had no idea the advanced screen process was that high security. I’ve gone to maybe one or two advanced screenings, but I never had to hand over my cell phone. I think I would be frustrated with that and maybe just leave it in my car so as not to have to deal with it there.

    I’m might jealous of you getting to see The Hunger Games early, and can only IMAGINE how early you must have needed to get there to even get halfway decent seats. I got to see it last night, and it was in one of the biggest theaters I’ve been in. All packed. And crazy. And so many cell phones ablaze and lighting up the theater DURING the movie (so annoying).

    1. The HUNGER GAMES premiere was the biggest circus I’ve been a party to where advance screenings are concerned. I thought it would be tricky to eclipse the zoo that was Daniel Radcliffe’s appearance for THE WOMAN IN BLACK PREMIERE, but at least that show was contained to one cinema (HUNGER GAMES took over four theatres!).

      While it is nice to know that no cellphones will be lighting up during the show, I do wish it was easier to get them back after it was all over…and that they were kept in something more secure than a paper bag guarded by a rent-a-cop.

  15. I was at the Hunger Games screening,too. On my movie pass,it said they were collecting phones so I did not bring my phone to the movie. I agree Ryan with a lot of commments you have mentioned. I go to free movies every week.I had to set up facebook and twitter accounts to win movie passes. Is it worth all the trouble to get these movie passes? YES!

    1. (Welcome to The Matinee Terry)

      Glad to know you dig winning the free passes – I’m certainly on board with seeing things a little earlier than opening night, and for free at that. Hopefully I’m clear on that, because I didn’t want this post to seem like I was poo-poo’ing those who jump through such hoops.

      usually I’m cool with leaving my phone out of the equation, it just really comes in handy when you’re trying to co-ordinate with others.

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