As theaters prepare to reopen its doors, one of the biggest theater chains is not going to ignore its own social distancing guidelines and force strangers to sit next to each other when the cinema chain reopens this week.
AMC’s ticketing engine will automatically block out one seat on either side of every party beginning Monday, but the technology was not in place when tickets first started going on sale last week.
AMC is opening the doors to 100 locations on Thursday, but the chain will only allow auditoriums to be at 30% capacity. That means that 70% of seats will be left empty during any showtime, which will leave more than enough room between cinephiles to feel comfortable during the film.
Guests will be mandated to engage in social distancing to keep auditoriums free from coronavirus. It may mean, however, that there will be rare circumstances where guests do not end up in the seat they selected online.
AMC hopes that roughly two-thirds of its approximately 600 locations across the U.S. will be operational by September 3rd.
