ChanceyGardener

Former movie theater manager here, our policy was no outside food or drinks. That being said, I don't give a shit what you bring in - just don't parade it in front of me as you enter or I'm going to ask you to throw it away.

Former manager again, I used to see movies all the time before they came out. Most theaters are all digital now so the movies arrive on a huge hard drive. We ingest it into our system at our main computer, where we can then send it out to other auditoriums. The hard drives only become active after we get "keys" for them via satellite. These digital keys normally have dates on them as to when they are active (IE Star Treks that just were shipped out were active a whole two days before it was released). So it really just depends on when the studio deems it active.

Most BIG studio movies (Harry Potter, Avengers) keys aren't good until the morning of the release, so it's hard to get a jump on them. I remember when we had to wait for keys for The Dark Knight TRAILERS.

But I also used to have keys to the building too, so I'd say the best perk was getting to go into the theater at 2am and watch whatever the hell I wanted.

Former movie theater manager of six years here.

Here is the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me. It was a slow weeknight a few winters ago. A middle aged woman and her mother walked into our lobby. As they head off towards their movie I see a black hat fall out of the younger ones coat, she doesn't notice. I pick it up and head off towards their theater.

Once in the theater I see the lady and her mother sitting near the front. I walk over to her and say "excuse me miss, I think you dropped this". I hand her the hat and she inspects it confused. She looks at her mother, and then back to me and says "no"

Now I'm confused because I know this fell out of her jacket, but I don't push any further. Once outside the theater I look at the hat and realize - it isn't a hat at all. It was a pair of black dirty women's underwear - and I tried to give it back to her completely nonchalant.

If you're going to be smart about pirating, you'd go during a weekday when it's not as crowded (downside is you won't be able to get the movie just after it's released). If you did decide to risk it on a weekend, most theaters have police as security and we won't stop the movie - we'll just go in with a police officer and have you escorted out.

Little incentive for theater employees, if you catch a pirate, you can be rewarded something like $10,000 from the MPAA or studio. Not sure on the specifics of that one.

Most of the time theaters put their most timid employees who are basically ineffective anywhere else at the podium.

Used to have an old homeless guy who would walk in pretending to be on his cellphone, and walk right past the person and sit in our game room. Eventually he would just walk into a movie.