Call Me, Cineplex Moguls

I have a million-dollar idea for you. (I mean it’ll cost you a million dollars to buy it from me, not that you’ll earn a million from it. You’ll clear a million in the first ten minutes of using it.)

Take your average cineplex lobby. Rearrange things so that I can walk up to the box office and not only purchase a couple tickets to Clone Wars II: We Try to Break Even, but also buy the “family” popcorn deal or the nacho-like chips or a crate of Junior Mints or whatnot, all in one transaction. Ka-chung ka-chung, the tickets print up and on them appears an order number. I stroll around the corner and there awaits my order, all ready except maybe for a jot of butter (no less than three tbsp) and some salt. The kid behind the counter checks my order number against his screen to make sure I’m not taking fare paid for my the Dewy-Eyed Teenagers, and I’m off to my seat for a few thousand pre-movie calories.

This would be much better than the current arrangement in every theatre I’ve visited in the last five years, where you have to make two transactions (for tickets, for refreshments) and wait in long lines to do both. Maybe you put drive-in style menu boards up outside the box office so that the ravening hordes can decide how to stuff their gullets while they wait in the queue. That’s up to you. You’re the one who own the cineplexes, after all.

You’re welcome.