Stupid Guest Tricks

Ok, who else out there has had one like this?

This afternoon, I was at Usher in Shrek. Before the show, I speiled the usual rules, including the 'no eating, drinking, smoking, video recording, or photography, particularly Flash Photography' rule. About thirty seconds into the show, from the second row, right in front of my panel, *FLASH*! I immediately pinpoint the woman with the camera, and tell her to put it away. No sooner do I turn away to check something, than *FLASH*! I had to spend the entire fourteen minutes of the show personally babysitting this woman to make sure she followed the rules.


I talked to the Preshow crew member afterward, and apparently, this same woman did the exact same thing in Preshow.
:dropmouth

I've had this several times.

BTTF: The safety video before you enter shows a crash test dummy taking a flash picture of himself, then he gets smacked upside his head by the other crash test dummy, which also shakes the "you've been naughty" finger. Many times, guests would ignore this. If the flashes were bright and appeared to affect show quality, or if they blinded the tower operator, that car would be taken out of service. If they continued to take flash pictures, their car would be returned to the home position and they would be told by a Lab Assistant why their car stopped. They'd get to ride again, but would be warned that if they took flash pictures again, their ride would be stopped again and the piture taker would be kicked off the ride.

ROTM: The entire queue is dark, so anyone taking a flash picture is at risk of blinding other guests. At the load area, a bright flash can blind the Minions, which would make it unsafe for them to load. Generally, the person with the camera would be sent down to the lockers to put their camera away.

Jurassic Park: People like to take pictures of the T-Rex just by the final drop. If the flash is too bright/blinding, the JP Ranger hidden in a side booth, could stop the lift and make a "no flash pictures" spiel.

I also work at Shrek, just in the Orlando one. We have the same problem with flash photography, although usually we get the paparazzi to stop in our Preshow. This usually stops the offending guests: "Flash photography, video taping, or even a photogenic memory will get you a Flogging!" If they keep taking pictures, I'll tell them to stop because "We here at Duloc wouldn't want any of our neighboring Kingdoms (down the road) to see any pictures of our secret torture devices."

One day I had a guest just like you did CB. While loading Theater, I saw a guest take giant flash, so I repeated the rules that she already heard in Preshow. She had sat down in the middle, and had already taken three pictures less than a minute into the show (When Fiona is sitting in her onion talking to Donkey). I stopped the show, and got on the microphone saying:

"Are the prisoners deaf today? What part of No Flash Photography do you not understand? Prisoners, if you see someone using flash photography, feel free to yell at them, as they are only delaying your torture."

Several guests yelled "Put it away" and that fixed the problem. Even though guests don't listen to us sometimes, they will usually listen to their peers.


I also use the same "peer pressure" trick when I have one group that can't quite get how to SIT DOWN.

And CB, is your Usher position where you talk on the microphone loading the theather?

Skovdaddy wrote:And CB, is your Usher position where you talk on the microphone loading the theather?

Yep. At the time I was running solo. We sometimes have a second usher as well.


Hey, since I've got a Florida Shrekkie here, I had a guest ask an interesting question last week. He wanted to know if your theater was bigger or ours. I honestly don't know, so I'm going to ask. How many guests can you guys seat?

That happens in almost every attraction I work except the coasters, mostly
because their afraid of dropping their camera, I suppose.

They just totally ignore me. I've flight stopped Star Tours once for this guy
using one of those "Holy Roman Empire" video lights and the rest of the guests
applauded me. That was cool.

CBeilby wrote:Yep. At the time I was running solo. We sometimes have a second usher as well.

Hey, since I've got a Florida Shrekkie here, I had a guest ask an interesting question last week. He wanted to know if your theater was bigger or ours. I honestly don't know, so I'm going to ask. How many guests can you guys seat?

We in Orlando have TWO theaters that have 300 seats each, although we only load 292 guests because 8 of the 300 seats are stationary. So on a busy day we can get close to 2400 guests per hour. The second theater was added on and finished late March of 2005, mainly because Shrek always had a long wait time when we only had one theater.

The Theaters are backwards images of each other, and both exit into our gift shop. TH2 only needs two projectors instead of 4 projectors like our TH1 does. TH2 has a few minor things cut out of it, like one of the double curtains, and the banners on the side of the theater don't move. (No one noticed those anyways). Since the theaters are mirror images of each other, in TH1 you tell guests to move to their left, while in TH2 you tell them to move to their right. Sometime I will forget which theater I am in and severely confuse the guests.

Hopefully I answered your question, now I have some questions for you:

How many guests do you seat per show?

Is it true that you guys get to wear shorts? And that you don't have to wear spats? (fake boots)

Is it also true that you guys don't speil at all in the preshow? We in Orlando do a 5-7 minutes speil about how the guests are going to get tortured and flogged, and my lead told me that you guys just load the people in and press the start button. Is that true?

I'm glad to finally meet a Shrekkie from Hollywood!

Skovdaddy wrote:Hopefully I answered your question, now I have some questions for you:

Yes you did. Thanks.

How many guests do you seat per show?

We have 488 seats, plus space for eight wheelchairs. SOP lists capacity as 450 guests, so that we have a margin for error.

Is it true that you guys get to wear shorts? And that you don't have to wear spats? (fake boots)

We have the option of wearing shorts. The spats are required with the long pants, but not the shorts.

Is it also true that you guys don't speil at all in the preshow? We in Orlando do a 5-7 minutes speil about how the guests are going to get tortured and flogged, and my lead told me that you guys just load the people in and press the start button. Is that true?

Oh, we don't do the long speil. We do however have to repeatedly spiel the rules and the safety stuff, and most of us do something for the last minute or two before starting preshow. I personally like to also intersperce some little fake announcements and advertisements (for example, "Talking Donkey Registration will be held on the sixth thursday of every month ending in the letter 'Q'" or "Mr. Nimble. Mr. J.B. Nimble. Please come to the front desk. We've recovered your candle stick.")

I'm glad to finally meet a Shrekkie from Hollywood!

Agreed. We Shrekies have to stick together.

I have a really good one. I actually went to work at another attraction and a girl there told me that she was offended by something one of our preshow attendants said in their speil. When she described it I was pretty sure it was me. I had quite a few small shows and the crowd was lame so i said "if I have to stand up her in this silly costume and fake enthusiasm you can at least laugh at my bad jokes" Its not like we wear normal looking clothes. And they are rather silly looking. Without admitting it was me I told her that a lot of us say that and you can not please everyone all the time. For the rest of the day she did not have much to say. It just made no sense at all to me.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...... Oh sorry, I’ve been feeling really spaced out lately.

A while back, when I was at Earthquake, I once got in trouble for spieling the following: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I ask you to refrain from flash photography while inside our theater as you will only succeed in blinding me causing me to stumble off the stage, falling and crushing any loved ones you have in the front row.” It was funny because I am very large.

PS: During training I said this instead of the normal loading spiel: please move all the way to the end of the row. Please do not attempt to sit on the lean rails for they are call lean rails for a reason and that would defeat their purpose. Please do not stand on the lean rails for that is just plain ridiculous.

Ohh the memories.

You silly cm's, you seem to forget that rules/laws do NOT apply to them. Just everybody else. I don't remember if it was this board or another,but some other guest suggest yawning and streching at the same time to cover these j-holes camera. Or covering their flash with your hat. :D:
Of course a good "KNOCK IT OFF" in their ear might help also. :twisted:

I doubt it,but you never know.