With the theatres beginning to operate, producers seem to have become vigilant of the number of admits in the halls. Reliance entertainment went out of their way to ensure that the cinemas are admitting the same number of people as the tickets being sold. This comes after many reports suggested lesser numbers of tickets being sold than the number of admits in the cinema hall.
A source informed that there are some theatres that deliberately mismatch the numbers and allow more people inside the theatre than the number of tickets sold of a particular show.
The production has reportedly informed the professional agency about the release plan with the cinema name and location with the number of shows. Following this, a Vigilance Officer Executive has been deputed to a respective territory with a team of 6-7 people for each territory. The team will conduct surprise visits to the cinemas. The officer will buy the ticket to watch the film and will count the number of admits in the middle of the movie.
After visiting the cinema, the Vigilance Officer Executive will send a detailed report to the makers on Whatsapp. And once the report is received, Reliance Entertainment will contact the Owner/Manager of the cinema who had flouted the ethics. Following this, they may charge 100 per cent of their hall’s capacity and also levy penalties on case to case basis.
Suniel Wadhwa, Reliance Entertainment’s distribution consultant confirmed the hiring of a private agency for the movie Sooryavanshi across all cinemas in India.
“We have come across many cinemas that have been under-reporting and pilferage/leakages have been observed by excess audiences- but under-reported DCR. We have had cases of more admits than the permissible capacity of 50 per cent; some cinemas under this limit were operating to the tune of even 100 per cent. Such cinemas have been charged penalties and the movie was terminated in their premises with immediate effect”.
