TL;DR – Things you can’t see with the naked eye.
Occasionally, you wouldn’t mind paying a premium price to treat yourself or that special someone to a luxury movie treat, where you can curl up on a bed-like seat with a blanket wrapped around you and escape from your reality for an hour or two.
Wide screen, checked.
Crispest sound systems, checked.
Comfortable recliners seats, checked.
More legroom, checked.
Cozy blankets, checked.
Personal service, checked.
Luxurious movie experience, checked.
Clean and hygienic movie theatre… wait, we can’t be too sure, can we?
In one of our articles, we shed some light on the poor hygiene practice in South Korea’s five-star hotels which has left most of us grossed out. The housekeepers became apathetic, doing only the minimum required as they try to accomplish cleaning as many rooms as they can within the few hours.
Whereas in cinemas, you might have seen the cleaning crew standing by at the back of the theatre, waiting to clean up the piles of rubbish left on the floor by careless movie-goers at the end of each film. But has it occurred to you how the seats are being cleaned? How are the cushions and blankets provided to you being cleaned?
Were they ever cleaned?
Anyone remembers the bedbug incidents? Not one but two incidents were reported whereby patrons were bitten by bedbugs. One happened in Rex Cinema at Mackenzie Road, while the other took place at two of Golden Village’s cinemas. But how did bedbugs come about?
In the episode of one of our favourite Korean TV programmes, CSI: Consumer Scene Investigation, which was broadcasted on the 18th March, the team did another investigation. This, time, they checked out a premium movie theatre in Seoul that offers recliner seats.
In the footage, it was revealed that the seat covers, the pillows covers, and blankets were not replaced at the end of each day like the staff had claimed. Check out the footage below. We’ve too, added English subtitles here, you’re welcome 🙂
Of course the TV programme is only showing what they have found out in South Korea, and does not imply in any way that the theatres in Singapore are the same.
In Singapore, a clean-up is typically done after each screening. When the lights come on, the crew start their clean-up which includes removing litter on the carpet, performing a wipe-down of the seats and attending to any spillage, among other tasks. To make things really challenging, they only have 10 to 20 minutes to do so before the next movie screening comes on.
A more thorough cleaning of every hall, which includes vacuuming between the seats, will be conducted after the last show at the end of the day and this takes about an hour for each hall.
Tough job, yeah?
While it has also been reported that movie-goers are increasingly cleaning up after themselves after each movie, the habit of cleaning up after ourselves instead of leaving popcorn boxes, empty bottles, food wrappers and erm, soiled baby diapers and live crabs behind, should be instilled into us.
Nobody likes getting bitten by bedbugs, nor sitting on seats with sticky residue which could be anything from cola, chocolate and whatever else movie-goers could be eating.
I’m sure you don’t. So let’s all do our parts by cleaning up after ourselves.
