Thai Movie Theater Mysteries

[manarak]

movie theaters are places in Thailand where everything does not make perfect sense for me, often leaving me wondering.

1- the first thing is about some ads I have seen recently at the avenue major cineplex in Pattaya. Some ads are shown in distorted format, for example 4:3 instead of 16:9 and vice versa - I wonder how it is possbile to screw that up.

2- second thing to wonder about is the pretty obvious temperature mystery. why on earth do they insist on running aircons so strong to cool down the rooms to 25 or 26 °C when outside it's 33°C and everyone coming in with street clothes is invariably freezing? To go to the movies, I always wear long jeans and pack a pair of socks and a sweat shirt... gets tiresome and the long pants are too warm to wear outside. hmmm... can't figure that one out, because if the theaters could even save money on their power bill if they used less aircon (maybe 2 °C more).

3- the commemoration of the HM the King - There are several spots running and some of them are quite moving, describing advances HM the King brought to Thailand, such as electrification for example, and the veneration of HM the King by Thai people.
One thing that I heard only one version of is the accompanying song. Is it in some way special, so that they can change the clips but not the exact song (i.e. always the same exact voice and arrangements)?

4- last is the biggest mystery by far: every time I have bought seats at the avenue, when it comes to choose the seats on the seat plan, generally one series of seats situated in the middle (best seats) are always booked, but never ever do people show up to sit there. The size of the reservation varies, sometimes 4 seats, sometimes as much as 8 on the same row, or 10 to 12 split between 2 rows.

I have been thinking about what could explain this booking and no show, but so far I was unable to come up with a plausible theory.