Phil Bargery sent a message to Sumner Redstone that said:
HI,
We complained to Showcase in the UK (see below), three weeks ago (12th Nov) and have yet to receive a reply, can you teach the UK some customer service?
We do not attend the cinema very often and I wanted to experience the XPlus showing of the new James Bond film Spectre.
Iâll start with the only plus point of this event, which was the young man, who was clearing out the auditorium prior to the showing, whose diligence in clearing away the mess left by the previous patrons was worthy of recognition. He was cleaning the seats, as they had been left with the remnants of spilt drink and food, that would be appropriate in a pig sty. He should be recognised for his efforts. I did not get his name but he was of slight build and very present.
Now to the main reason for contacting Showcase customer service. As I said we do not attend the cinema very often, so we were looking forward to the XPlus experience.
Firstly the scheduled showing was for 16:00 on the 12th November, and we sat for 28 minutes just watching the XPlus logo flick on and off on the screen, then what we thought was some trailers started the first being for the up and coming Christmas release for Star Wars, this ended after approximately 15 seconds, the next trailer could not be identified as it ended after about 5 second. There was a flash screen stating the main feature was about to start and this finally rolled at 16:35.
The ambient lighting in the auditorium stayed at an elevated level, so much so that the screen had a blue ting to it, which was very prominent at the edges, and visible though the feature.
While the sound was very acceptable, the level of lighting was inappropriate for the movie and with people movement being visible, this was very distracting during the film.
We sat through the film which was what we came for and then on exiting approached what we thought was the duty manager, who was talking to another couple who were already raising the same points, about the poor experience and short/non-existent trailer plus the high ambient lighting.
We then spoke to the manager in training Strip Raju Cardoso, who was less than accepting of the issues raised and simple stated that this is all done remotely and that we had seen the film and that was all that was expected. He had no concept of customer care or the fact that going to the Cinema used to be an experience. We have a quite good home cinema system and therefore going to the cinema has to provide both a technical and emotional experience which I can say we did not experience on out visit to the Showcase cinema.
This was disappointing as Showcase have clearly invested in the XPlus experience and for this to be let down by what can only be described as amateur projectioning and a poor reception to any issues we raise, simple leaves us cold with the thought of using the Showcase in Woodley again.
Phil and Maureen Bargery
