Do you remember the craziness of “Avengers: Endgame” opening weekend? Do you remember how tickets were sold out for the first weeks of it being in theaters? How it made over a billion dollars, shattering box office records left and right?

Well, what I remember, and you probably don’t, is that even though “Endgame” sold out a month before its release, people still showed up on the day of trying to purchase tickets. 

If you try to buy “Avengers: Endgame” tickets on @Fandango, you are put in line at specific theaters. Ahh waiting in line for movie tickets, just like the old days. pic.twitter.com/hgca848jBS

— Frank Pallotta (@frankpallotta) April 2, 2019

In fact, Fandango, a ticket-purchasing website, was so backed up with pre sales that customers had to wait in a digital wait room to preorder their tickets.

I work at a movie theater and have survived the openings of “Avengers: Endgame”, “Captain Marvel”, “The Lion King”, “Pokémon Detective Pikachu” and much more.

I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the worst part about opening weekends is not cleaning popcorn covered and soda drenched theaters or serving a constant rush of impatient customers from concessions or even having customers scold you for not tearing their ticket properly (whatever that means); the worst part is having to explain to people over and over again that there are no tickets available for whichever movie came out that weekend, but that there’s still plenty of seats left in “Peanut Butter Falcon”. 

This past weekend, “It Chapter 2″ came out. By 7:30 PM, all of our showtimes for the rest of the night had sold out. From that point on, all I could do was turn customers away and print tickets for online purchases. 

Listen, I get it. Seeing a movie on a Friday night is one of my favorite things to do, but waiting until you get to the theater to buy your tickets isn’t feasible anymore. We live in a world of preorders and fandom where everyone wants the best seats and the knowledge that they will get in the theater.

Everybody likes going to the movies and everybody wants to see what just came out. Don’t get mad at me because you didn’t get your tickets early. 

Featured image taken by Norah Wulkopf