A "surprise" from Park Cinema: the air conditioning is out in Baku's only IMAX hall, but moviegoers are told only after they pay

Tickets for Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" in the IMAX hall of the Park Cinema theater in the Flame Towers complex are being snapped up in advance: for the second week in a row, no seats are left for evening screenings.

A correspondent for 1news.az bought his several days ahead. On the day of the screening he came to Flame Towers, went upstairs, got popcorn and water, paid — and just as he was receiving the payment receipt, he heard from the young woman behind the counter, quietly and a little apologetically, that the air conditioning in the hall was not working.

She deserves thanks for that: she could have kept quiet. Formally, the warning was given before entering the hall, and that would seem to be enough. But it came only after the money had changed hands.

Next, the cashier offered a way out: if it turned out to be too hot inside, the tickets could be returned. It sounded like a solution to the problem, and all that remained was to find out how feasible it was.

There was still time before the start, and our correspondent went up to the hall — to wait for those coming out of the previous screening. People came out quickly and spoke louder than usual, and their answers were roughly the same: it's twice as hot inside as it is here. "Here" is the second-floor lobby, which was hot even without any comparisons.

Similar feedback was received from an employee of the theater itself, who was on duty at the entrance to the IMAX hall. He neither argued nor defended his employer — he simply agreed. And judging by the drops of sweat on his face, there was not much left to confirm: he was thoroughly overheated just from standing by the doors.

All that was left was to go back to the box office. The line there was the same one as twenty minutes earlier, only longer. The refund would have taken at least half an hour — with only a few minutes left before the start of the screening. The right to a refund existed; exercising it was problematic.

And there was no desire left to go back into the hall for two hours and fifty minutes. Two hundred and eighty-two seats, all occupied, closed doors, projection equipment running behind you. There's no need to describe the rest: anyone who has ever spent August in a packed hall without ventilation knows how it goes. In the end, our correspondent declined the refund and went to watch the film at another theater — the IMAX tickets went unused.

How much air costs

The IMAX hall in Flame Towers is the first and only one in Azerbaijan, with two hundred and eighty-two seats. In total, the theater has six halls and eight hundred seats, and on its own website the venue is described as a high-end establishment combining traditional comfort and an atmosphere of luxury.

A ticket there costs more than one for a regular hall.

For reference — on August 14, an adult ticket for "The Odyssey" in the IMAX hall for the 5:40 p.m. screening cost 14 manats; the same film on the same day in regular hall No. 5 for the 7:10 p.m. screening cost 9 manats. The difference is five manats, about 56 percent. The film in both halls is the same, and the markup is paid, of course, not for it, but for the screen, the sound and — by default — for the conditions in which all this is watched.

What the theater says

The editorial staff sent an inquiry to Park Cinema. The company confirmed the malfunction.

"The abnormally high air temperature observed in Baku in recent days, as well as the full occupancy of the IMAX hall to its designated maximum capacity, created a load on the air conditioning system. As a result of the simultaneous impact of these factors, technical disruptions in the operation of the air conditioning system occurred during individual screenings, and difficulties arose in maintaining the optimal temperature in the hall," the response says.

It also states that after the malfunction was discovered, the technical service intervened, the system is under enhanced technical supervision, and additional measures are being taken to ensure its stable operation. A separate point reads as follows: "the procedures for informing viewers at the box office before payment and before the start of the screening in cases of technical limitations have been strengthened, and employees have been given additional instructions." The company offered an apology.

As a rule, what gets strengthened is what was not working well enough — and that is perhaps the most substantive line in the response. And it refers only to the box office. A viewer who bought a ticket online and walked past the counter to the hall still learns nothing.

This can be verified in a minute. On August 14, the theater's website was selling tickets for four screenings in the IMAX hall.

On the seat selection page — the very one where the price is listed — not a word was said about technical limitations in the hall.

What the response does not say

The editorial inquiry contained far more questions. The response contains not a single figure.

Since what date the system has been out of order is unknown. How many screenings took place under such conditions and how many viewers attended them is also unknown: the response says "individual screenings," without a number. Whether ticket sales were suspended, how long a refund takes, whether compensation is provided for those who have already sat through their two hours and fifty minutes, whether temperature measurements were taken and how many complaints were received — about all this the response says nothing.

But in the explanation of the causes there is a detail the company provided itself. Among the factors of overload, the full occupancy of the hall is named. But the hall was selling out in advance, two weeks ahead: the load was not sudden, but known, and was repeated from screening to screening. Tickets continued to be sold.

What the Consumers Union thinks about it

The Consumers Union considers the situation to go far beyond everyday inconvenience.

"If advertising clips or other information sources state that the hall is equipped with air conditioning, but in practice this is absent, de facto this constitutes a violation of consumer rights," the organization noted in a comment to 1news.az.

According to a representative of the union, when such complaints are received, the organization turns to state agencies, but often receives a response that this concerns private property and interference in business policy is out of the question.

They consider such an approach fundamentally wrong: a commercial entity, the union believes, exists first and foremost to satisfy the customer's needs. They also draw attention to the age of the legislation — the current law on consumer protection was adopted in 1995 — and assess current state policy as oriented primarily toward supporting business. That, the organization says, is what explains the prevalence of such stories.

"A consumer comes to an establishment expecting a full-fledged rest, but the reality turns out to be far from the stated conditions and his expectations," they say at the Consumers Union.

Complaints, they believe, must definitely be filed, and the relevant body is the State Service for Antimonopoly Control and Supervision of the Consumer Market under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The editorial staff sent an inquiry there; as of the time of publication, no response had been received.

What's left

Two hundred and eighty-two seats and not one free. A ticket for fourteen manats — 56 percent more expensive than a regular one. A warning that comes after payment, and a refund that takes half an hour in line to obtain.

A confirmed malfunction, apologies and a promise to strengthen the provision of information at the box office... On the ticket purchase page, as of August 14, there is no information at all, and screenings in the IMAX hall are running on schedule.

P.S. And one more thing — no longer about the theater, but about the Flame Towers complex itself

Everything described above concerns Park Cinema. But there is a storyline that relates not to the theater, but to the Flame Towers complex as a whole — and one that everyone who comes here by car encounters.

The entire underground parking lot of the complex has a single payment terminal. It does not allow parking to be paid for by card — only in cash; payment via a mobile app is not provided for at all.

In ordinary times this is simply an inconvenience. But when a hall of two hundred and eighty-two people exits the theater at once, followed by a second and a third, a line forms at the single terminal, in which people stand with banknotes in their hands looking for someone to give them change.

Add to this the elevators. There are two for the entire tower, and in the evening hours the wait stretches out so much that the line in front of them becomes a permanent feature of the landscape — both before the screening and especially after it.

How such crowds of people — at the elevators and at the single terminal at the exit — correspond to fire safety requirements and evacuation regulations is a question no longer for the theater…