January 8, 2024
KUALA LUMPUR – A Malaysian woman bought tickets for all the seats in a cinema hall to avoid a crowd.
Influencer Eriyca Baiduri posted a video of herself in an undisclosed empty cinema hall on video-sharing platform TikTok on Jan 3. Ms Eriyca, who runs a beauty brand, is seen munching on popcorn, wearing spectacles.
“We are the introverted type! So we bought all the seats,” she said in her caption. She did not name the movie she was watching.
The video shows there are about 10 rows of seats in the hall, with each row consisting of 16 seats. A check shows that ticket prices average between RM11 (S$3.15) and RM35 for movies, so the exercise could potentially have cost her any amount between RM1,760 and RM5,600.
The TikTok video has garnered about 60,000 views and 280 comments so far.
Many users shared their preference for watching movies alone while others suggested that she should have bought tickets of a higher class.
User @surihati_mrsepet said it would have been better if Ms Eriyca had bought a Gold Class or Platinum Class ticket instead. In a response to the comment, Ms Eriyca said Gold Class tickets for the movie were not available.
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Gold Class tickets typically include services such as food and beverage offerings, and seats that offer more comfort, such as reclining chairs made of leather. Checks showed that these tickets cost between RM58 and RM80.
User @mr.cafemilk, who claims to also enjoy movies in solitude, says his solution is to “always buy movie tickets at a fancy shopping mall at 12pm on Mondays”.
“The hall is likely to be empty so I don’t have to buy it out,” he said.
User @katak.hijo said: “If I could afford it, I would do this too. I would not hear the sound of children making noise when they are unattended to by their parents or people chatting.”