I love going to the movies. I enjoy watching flicks on the big screen with a crowd. But you know what I find annoying? Sharing an armrest.
It’s not that I don’t want to share, but I don’t like how there’s the awkwardness of trying to figure out with a stranger in the dark which armrest I can use. Designers from Jiangnan University in China came up with a workaround that lets cinemagoers share armrests in the least awkward way possible.
Dubbed “ArcSeats” and the winner of a Red Dot Design Award, the seats are staggered in, well, an arc shape, allowing people sitting next to each other to use the same armrest without rubbing elbows. The arc shape can also apparently increase the flow of cinemagoers in and out of the theatre.
These plan currently exist in idea form only — but this is a neat concept. Now, if these designers could come up with a solution to the one of the other most annoying things at movie theatres: the prices.
ArcSeat [Red Dot]
Picture: CREATISTA/Shutterstock
Comments
10 responses to “A Solution For One Of The Most Annoying Things At The Movies”
Video games, ladies and gentlemen. Honestly, I don’t usually mind when Kotaku strays a little bit from the video game side of things, but this is ridiculous. Cinema seating arrangements?
Gaming culture blog, not ‘video game news site’.
This interpretation of gamer culture includes a love of movies, tv shows, figurines, tech toys (but not to quite the level of obsession as Gizmodo), comics, anime, cosplay, and more. There is no trick here, there is no misleading or misdirection.
Learn it. Absorb it. Adjust expectations to match. You’ll be much happier.
I am aware of that and, like I said, don’t mind the things that you mentioned. But this is about chairs. A seating arrangement. I wouldn’t say this article is about movies, I’d say it’s about cinemas. Those are two different things.
I can see why you mightn’t. I know I include it – as nerds and geeks with technical savvy (yo ho ho) and HUGE DVD/blu-ray collections (often the same people), the cinema experience is practically the only reason to ever bother going to one, so it’s totally a geek topic.
Who else in the world goes to midnight premieres and/or cosplays at them? Geeks. Just like obsessing over the smell of popcorn, the over-charging of snacks, and pre-show preview sessions when they’re going to include an exclusive trailer for an upcoming geek-fetish movie.
Too bad for the people there on dates
Constant head turning to talk to your date, maybe they can give you a one sided shoulder rub
You should be watching the movie not making out.
Honestly, some people…priorities.
What happens if I want to stretch my arm out on the arm rest?….
Then you’re a monster.
If you go to packed movie theatres it’s such a bad experience that sharing an armrest ranks quite low, IMO.
This is all sorts of wrong.
There aren’t supposed to be any random people sitting next to you anyway unless they are ignoring cinema seat protocol (it was upgraded to protocol from etiquette due to ongoing issues with people ignoring or somehow unaware of the system) in which case you can submit a report with the session head and have them relocated to appropriate seats, along with being given an information pack.
How about seats that aren’t sized for midgets.
I mean I’m 1.86 so not THAT tall, but seriously the only way I can ever get comfortable is by practically lying down with my feet on the arm rests of the seats in front of me (granted no ones sitting there).