This is a petition from the Australian community for the major cinema chains in the country, like Event Cinemas, Hoyts, Reading, and Palace, to bring back ushers so more jobs can be created and for the average film theatre experience to be improved. Who was an usher, you may ask? An usher was a person in a cinema who had the job of:

1. Checking tickets

2. Showing audience members their seats

3. Sometimes coming into the cinema (before the movie starts) with food and drink for guests to buy.

4. Letting people know when it was time to come into the theatre after cleaning was finished.

5. Helping sick audience members leave

6. Stoping inappropriate behaviour among audience members. A lot of the time ushers had the job of sitting in the cinema with the audience, and if someone was talking too much, kicking the back of someone’s seat, illegally filming, basically not having any manners, they would quietly come up to tell the person doing the inappropriate behaviour to stop, and leave if they kept repeating the offence. Either that, or the usher would wait outside the theatre and an audience member would quietly come out and let the usher know about the behaviour.

If you have ever been to the movies over the past few years, you may have noticed that the average film theatre experience is slowly becoming barely enjoyable. Not many people seem to behave well anymore. While zero manners among individual people has always been a problem in cinemas, it is actually becoming worse. More people are now putting their feet up against seats, going on their phones during the movie, talking too much, clapping and cheering (as if cinemas are actually theatre stages or sports arenas), laughing a lot during scenes that aren’t meant to be funny, walking into theatres without paying for tickets, and more.

Ushers use to be quite prominent in cinemas — those who are a part of the baby boomer generation would especially remember them. Unfortunately, during the 1980s and 90s, cinema chains wanted to try to save as much money as possible, so they fired many of them. Nowadays, it is sadly very rare to see a single usher working in a movie theatre, let alone several at once. This is a negative aspect because there are more people now who think that they can get away with being rude (and even mean and creepy) during a movie. It's hard to tell any staff members about inappropriate behaviour (unless they become extreme) anymore, as they’re either too busy paying people at the sweet bars or checking tickets (bear in mind, nowadays there’s usually only one person who has to job of checking tickets, so as if they'll have time). Sometimes, we can tell the manager, but they can often be busy and sometimes take a long time to deal with the behaviour. Ushers are much quicker.

So if ushers were finally brought back to Australian cinemas, we would feel a lot safer, happier, and more comfortable. Noise level among the audience would be kept to a minimum, no more feet being put up against our backs (and kicking us from behind), patrons would be asked to leave temporarily if they must go on their phones during a film, and also less piracy, since ushers also had to job of stopping illegal camera recordings.

By signing this petition, you urge major movie theatre chains such as Event Cinemas, Hoyts, and Palace Cinemas to do us a favour by creating more jobs, especially for those who are struggling to find one as we’re recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, by implementing the return of cinema ushers, so we can all have a pleasant experience as we’re watching a movie again. It’s disgusting that businesses would rather put money first over a customer’s experience these days!