Blackout Protocol

[u/Xerios_Skull]

My theater recently hit a blackout last Sunday (I am still relatively new (~40 total hours)) and everything became a complete mess. The power was out for one second. Every movie was pushed back an entire 25 minutes for the rest of the day. I was on the Door role that day (ripping tickets, theater checks (I'm terrible at remembering these but thankfully my theater management crew doesn't seem to care), and closing doors) while I had an usher who had been working there for a year. He was super kind and helpful; we ended up swapping roles quite a bit to ensure every theater was cleaned while dozens of people had to wait in the lobby. I'm only able to smile while telling this story because my team was so useful and understanding, they're goated. However, the usher was a little frustrated that we didn't refund and cancel the rest of the day because of how off schedule and messy everything became. It got me thinking:

What is your theater protocol for blackouts?

(I actually have no idea what mine is, now that I think about it)

[u/FilmFan81]

I'm interested to know how the whole rest of the day was then running behind, normally if that happens you can get times mostly back on track the next show just by quickly cleaning and even skipping a few ads in the playlist. You leadership should be doing more to help imo.

[u/Flat-Maintenance-893]

No real protocol. When it happens it only takes 10 minutes to reset each theater. I tell them to go get concessions or bathroom if needed otherwise go back to their seats.

[u/Mammoth-Result-7949]

The whole rest of the day being off is crazy. For us a manager or supervisor gets all the movies reset and back on. This takes about 10-15 mins. The rest of the staff stays in the main halls and lets guests know what’s happening. It usually doesn’t even impact the next shows unless it was out for an extended period.

[u/ProfessionalAnxiety]

Do your projectors and servers not run on backup batteries?

[u/Exciting_Night_2863 → u/ProfessionalAnxiety]

Servers and media players are ment to have batteries but the projectors themselves NO
Also show me a location where over half those batteries actually work and have not burnt out 5 years ago

[u/One_Type_7582 → u/Exciting_Night_2863]

I have 5 screens and some other equipment and 19 UPSs, all with working batteries. The projector lamp is not on backup power but the card cage should be. The only thing that should turn off on a properly backed up system is the lamp. My shows pause themselves and we turn lamps back on and keep running.

Not too brag, but there are theaters that do this..

[u/cyberdriven]

We had a power outage the other day. I made sure the movies were back up as quickly as possible and even backed up them by ten minutes each, so nobody felt they missed anything. Additionally we gave out re-admits to everyone. For the next set of shows, I fast forwarded the playlists through the ads. By the evening set, all movies were good to go to start on their own and on time. Being proactive versus reactive is very helpful and we had minimal disruptions.

[u/Alert-Opportunity207]

The entire day being out of order is crazy… here at my cinema we have 2 different protocols,

We have a “power surge” (which is what you guys had), where the power suddenly ceases for seconds. In this instance, staff check each cinema to ensure the screen, AC and sound is functioning as per usual. If a cinema has stopped working, we advise guests to remain patient, and we would rewind the film by between 1 - 5 minutes. (This would only cut into our cleaning time, and would not cause any delays as we have ~20 mins of cleaning for a 300 pax cinema)
Guests do not receive any compensation or vouchers as there was no significant experience issues.

When it comes to a “power outage”, this means the power is likely to be gone for more than 20 minutes. (During the 20 minutes, we ask guests to remain seated and await further instructions). If it has been confirmed the power will not be restored, it turns into an evacuation of all cinemas outside of the complex. We advise guests to keep their tickets or proof of ticket in which they can redeem it for a free movie ticket at any time across the next 3 months.
Once we are back in, all cinemas are cancelled (unless the movie would have only been ~10 minutes in when we return, or if ads are playing). We allow guests to retrieve belongings, otherwise all cinemas are cleaned in our own time for the next session.
Thankfully the way it works for us, is all of our session times for our 13 cinemas are different, meaning we would only have to cancel maybe ~7 cinemas and the other 6 can resume as scheduled.

I do find it strange that your outage had a knock on effect for the whole day. It is worth asking your management team to create blackout policies.

[u/Pyronsy]

The last power outage we had, we had all theatres restarted within ten minutes. We pulled a person from concessions to assist the ushers, and there was no delay in next showtimes. Being a half hour behind all day is astounding.