I can’t remember a time when going to movies was more challenging. Lend me your ears, for I speak from experience.

Last Friday night, we let our impulse get the better of us and took off for a movie. It obviously was a mistake. In Chennai, especially, it is such a wrong thing to do. I suspect it might be bad in several other cities too, but it was nasty out here.

The entire Sathyam Cinemas complex, and the entire block, was, what else, choc-a-bloc. There were no tickets for any of the movies; traffic jam was a kilometre long, if not more. Many who held tickets, among them children and older women, got down from cars stuck at the back and scampered to the halls, abandoning their drivers. We took an hour and a half to just circle the hall and escape.

It was not for nothing that I spent all that time sitting on the dark, and noisy, roads. I came up with two ideas, at least one of which has the potential to transform the movie-going experience, and make the movie distribution business more profitable.

Time is ripe for movie halls to create differential pricing, or maybe even an auction. After all, I am told 70% of the movie tickets at some theatres are now sold online.

Let me explain the differential pricing. This would be similar to what book publishers do with new books. The new books are always released in hardcover and are priced high; after a suitable time during which most people who could afford to have bought the book, it would be released in paperback at a much cheaper price.

Similarly, movie halls would freely price movie tickets. Already, several movie halls have higher rates on weekends, and happy hour rates for morning and afternoon shows, especially on weekdays. But this differential pricing doesn’t go far enough, in my opinion.

Under my plan, movie halls would be allowed to set rates for new movies, based on the director and the stars. So, a Shah Rukh Khan movie could be priced at Rs. 500 per seat on the opening weekend. Why, on the Internet, they could even auction the seats ahead of the opening. In subsequent weeks, movie halls would presumably lower their prices, as demand slackens. With parking being a big pain point, movie halls would link the tickets with parking, charging a suitably high rate to moviegoers who can afford it.

Since I am far from optimistic the above will happen, or at least happen in a hurry, the second is a how-to if you want a good movie-going experience. Here goes:

Get an Internet connection, if you don’t have one
Book your tickets online at least one week before the show, earlier if on the weekend, in order to get good seats
Hire a driver, if you don’t already have one
Leave two hours before the show starts to give yourself enough time to fight traffic jams and parking jams
Wear comfortable shoes, preferably sneakers, in case you need to eventually sprint to the hall
Don’t forget your cell phone if you want to keep in touch with your car, or people who you are going to the movies with.
And finally, don’t forget your prayers.