Moveigoers at the massive AMC Loews on 68th street and Broadway got quite a surprise on Friday night. For many of them, their movies stopped right in the middle with no explanation and they were suddenly evacuated.
One of the moviegoers wrote about his experience on the Huffington Post. Steven Rosenbaum was there watching The Wolf of Wall Street when the movie simply stopped without explanation and the theater went dark shortly before 11 p.m. The people there could vaguely hear a fire alarm, he said. But there were no lights.
“Within the theater itself there was no warning. No flashing lights. No emergency lighting. No house lights. No announcement to proceed calmly to the exits. The crowd of an estimated 750 within the audience were left without direction, information, or guidance After perhaps a minute, people began to file toward the theater exits. Some went out the exits to the street. Others exited back into the theater complex.
Once out in the street -13 auditoriums worth of people were wandering around, there was no theater staff. Just confusion. Would the films re-start? Would we be offered refunds? Was it a fire, or a false alarm? No management on a Friday night. There was no one at the front door — where audience members began to escape the cold and return to the theater. The complex today holds 13 theaters including the world’s largest IMax screen and 4,144 total seats. A crowd that clearly required some information, direction, and an emergency exit plan. There was none.”
One of our readers also said: “The folks there did an awful job of telling us what to do.”
It’s particularly odd there weren’t more employees directing traffic because that theater is so large — 13 screens, and capacity for more than 4,000 people.
We heard later that an employee may have inadvertently pulled the alarm.
AMC spokesman Ryan Noonan responded to Rosenbaum:
“Specific to last night, when the alarm went off, our crew immediately evacuated the building. After the fire department determined the building could not reopen immediately, passes were issued to anyone who remained. Guests who did not receive a pass may use their ticket stubs from last night as a pass to a future movie at AMC Loews Lincoln Square.”
“We have emergency lighting in every auditorium in our buildings,” he said.
But Rosenbaum and others disputed that account on twitter, saying that the only illuminated things in their theaters were the exit signs. The FDNY responded that “Theaters need battery-activated emergency lighting,” urging anyone who saw differently to contact the Building Inspection hotline at 718-281-3877.
Thanks for this. I no longer go to the AMC on 42nd St. precisely because I think there’s no way they could evacuate in an emergency. It’s impossible to get out even when the narrow escalators there are functioning, and they often aren’t.
I think your photo is out of date. It’s just AMC now, no more Loews. AMC is doing a bad job operating NYC movie theaters. And the commercials they run beforehand, including the promos and warnings made by AMC, are endless and extremely irritating.
Seriously?! Photo out of date, people wearing shorts in photo? So what! Considering what the article is about, who really cares. It’s a stock photo they had and put it up. It happens all the time. Not worth mentioning really. Reminds me of a quote by George Carlin-“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
Dear C. Marie – just explaining why the image did not have current signage. You really should take a chill pill to dissipate all that pent up anger 🙂
The point, C. Marie, is that the photo suggest that Loews is running the theater when AMC is now the company in charge. Get it?
AMC is Loews. 🙂
They are wearing shorts in the photo.
I was also there seeing Wolf of Wall Street and there were absolutely no lights in the theater – the movie screen just went black, we could hear an alarm from outside our theater, but no lights / message / alarm in the theater itself. On the way out everyone was confused on whether it was a few minutes, they were going to resume the movies, or if we were to truly evacuate. No one who worked there was in sight helping to guide people out.
Is the timing right in this article? I was watching the Wolf of Wall Street there and it went dark at around 9pm on Friday. Unless this happened twice that same evening?
Wow, that’s scary. I was at this AMC on Saturday afternoon, and the scene was total chaos. Most of the ticket machines were broken, there were massive lines and angry crowds, and not a single employee to be found. Luckily for me, I knew there were a few machines on the upper level, but employees should have been on the ground to help with crowd control & questions. Seems like their staff could use some safety training.
I also was at the 630pm Wolf of Wall Street showing and things went dark around 9pm with about 20-30 minutes left in the movie. There were no announcements, no management to be seen, and people were orderly, but uninformed by AMC.
I did go back to the theater on Jan 5th with my 2 ticket stubs and was given 4 free passes for future movies which was more than what I was expecting. They need to refresh their evacuation protocols though.
I experienced something similar at this theater over the summer, to a different result. About 20 minutes into our movie, the film stopped and the lights came on. An usher came in immediately and said there was a fire alarm and we needed to evacuate. The staff seemed to have a decent handle on the situation. There were employees guiding us out, and additional employees holding the doors for us while explaining that we could come back the next day for a refund. I believe it was determined later that and employee has mistakenly activated the alarm. Not sure what’s going on over there, but I do agree that the theater is understaffed. The ticketing machines downstairs are always wonky, with no one there to assist patrons.
This is the worst theatre in NYC. I have no doubt this happened. In addition, customers are regularly forced to wait to enter the theatre to see their movie, to find others just show up and are allowed in, without having to wait, while people are and have been patiently waiting in line.
AMC is doing an awful job of running these. This was great space, in a great location, great IMAX. They need to go to assigned seating and update the staff.
Try 84th Street, is is great now.
There was no announcement, no employees doing anything to inform all those in the theaters. After 10 minutes we found out because a couple of folks in our theater went to the restroom and came back with information. There was no “immediate” evacuation of the theater, and when we went back to get our refund, we were told that the manager was not on that evening. What would have happened if there was a real fire? It’s frightening to think about it. We were told there “is no PA system in the complex of theaters.” How can this be?
The fire alarm also went off on Saturday Jan 4th 225pm showing of WoWS. No announcement, no instruction, no lights. No leadership in a potential evacuation. To hear this happened in two consecutive days is upsetting.
I was there at the 2:25 showing of Wolf of Wall St on Saturday and the same thing happened. The lights did not go on and we faintly heard the fire alarm so we evacuated. There were some elderly people who were having a difficult time maneuvering in the dark. Just as I reached the escalator we were told there was no problem and we could return to our seats. KC is right , prior to the movie the theater most of the machines weren’t working and it was chaos.
We were at the 7:45 showing of Inside Lewelyn Davis, in a theater two floors below ground when the film just stopped. The lights went on, and everyone just sat there for about 15 minutes waiting for the movie to return. Several people went out to the washrooms or to find out what was going on, and returned to say there was a false alarm and we should say put till they got the film going. Still no staff, no PA, no announcements. Then someone arrived at the door and shouted to the theater that they needed to evacuate everyone, and we all left. The escalators weren’t working. We milled around the lobby, trying to get some word from the one poor staff member what we should do. She said we all had to leave the theater. All I could think about is what if it had been a real fire?
Was there that evening – what is of more concern is that we used escalators to leave only to be backed up at the exit because of piled up snow & loads of garbage. The side streets were one small path wide because of the snow so the hundreds of people exitibg down an escalator were in danger of getting trapped. Patrons who used a fire stair saw a similar condition at the ground level – with no ability to exit. Scary if you think about kids attending on their own. Absolutely no direction from management. Alarms did not sound in the theaters. Why were the escalators on??? Really dangerous had there been an actual fire.
The same thing happened on Saturday afternoon! I was watching “Wolf of Wall Street” and the movie went dark and a fire alarm went off. Most of the audience left and waited in the lobby, as did the other movie audiences. Finally someone stood on the Information desk and said, “There’s no danger!”. Fine, but they never said how long it would take for the film to start again. I went back to my seat and then wanted to find out when it would start. The 2 women behind the desk were very busy giving free passes and couldn’t say when the manager would appear. I waited and got 2 passes and when went back into the theater, it had already restarted.
Overall, awful coordination. Fortunately, no real emergency.
AMC needs to get its act together.
I was at the theatre that night watching 7:10 Catching Fire (not embarrassed)and while it wasn’t the most organized event, it wasn’t terrible. I was impressed by how calm all the theatre-goers were. In my theatre the lights went on, and people were confused but after a few minutes everyone got their stuff together and walked out. I could vaguely hear the alarms but there was no announcement.
We ended up going to dinner and then came back and got free tickets. The theatre reopened for the 10:45 movie.
I think if it were a real emergency there would have been a much bigger issue…they don’t even have a PA system if there was an emergency.
The new 84th and Broadway theatre has amazing seats!