I've have many visits here where the accessibility accommodations are abysmal. Through no fault of the staff and what seems to be corporate neglect, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing are still being neglected by the MovieScoop and the rest of the theater industry.
When I first moved to the area, Kent MovieScoop did not offer open captioned showings of any kind and recommended that I gather a group of 10 or more people who would want to reserve an entire theater to play a movie with open captions. That has since changed: they now offer two days each week at fully inaccessible show times. Unfortunately, these are either the first or last of the showings on Thursday and Tuesday respectively which makes HoH people like me and most working adults unable to attend because like most people, we have jobs. Corporate has to approve the showing schedule for each week and instead of offering a showing of popular movies at times where we can access them too, they've decided to stick them on days and times where 90% of people won't be at the movies anyway to avoid cutting into their profits. Adults can't go to the movies at 10am on a Thursday or 9:50 Tuesday night. Parents with kids, working adults, and people in school are all being put out intentionally.
You're probably thinking, 'why don't you just use the caption devices'? Well, because more than half of them at Kent are broken, and assuming they even turn on, in 10 years of needing them I have never once had a caption device of any kind actually include all of the dialogue with no omissions or mistakes. Kent Movie Scoop is no different. 3 of the theaters didn't work with the devices at all for several years and most of them have white lines down the text, don't turn on at all, read for the wrong theater, or don't stay up where Ican see into them. They need to be replaced at minimum. Assuming they work, a significant portion of the content never transmits to the device. A prime example of this is Avatar: The Way of Water where the Kent devices told me that the Navi thought the whales were evil and needed to be exterminated.
I can't help but think that a cheaper and infinitely more effective change to the pitiful accessibility policy and devices that corporate feels are adequate is to assign regular showtime slots when we can actually access them instead of taking the entire Deaf community and shoving us in a proverbial corner so we don't cut into your profits.
The thing about the Deaf World is that we have to drive 45 minutes to get to an accessible showing and we will show up in droves. there are no theaters in a 45 minute radius that offer open captioning. We don't fit in the corner. We are tired of being in the corner out of your way. There are hundreds of us within 45 minutes and thousands more who use captions on everything anyway and prefer open captioning. We won't cut into your profits because you're already cutting us out. Kent MovieScoop has my contact information. Make the...
Read moreI've have many visits here where the accessibility accomodations are abysmal. Through no fault of the staff and what seems to be corporate neglect, the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and audiologicly disabled members of the community in Kent, Ohio are still being neglected by the cinematic world and progress is slow.
When I first moved to the area, Kent Moviescoop did not offer open captioned showings of any kind and recommended that I gather a group of 10 or more people who would want to reserve an entire theater to play a movie with open captions. That as since changed. They now offer two separate days each week. Unfortunately, these are either the first or last of the showings on Thursday and Tuesday respectively which makes HoH people like me and several of my friends unable to attend because like most people, we have jobs. Corporate has to approve the showing schedual for each week and instead of offering a showing of popular movies at times where we can access them too, they've decided to stick them on days and times where 90% of people won't be at the movies anyway because we can't be there at 10am on a Thursday or 9:50 Tuesday night.
You're probably thinking, 'why don't you just use the caption devices'? Well, because more than half of them at Kent are broken, and assuming they even turn on, in 10 years of needing them I have never once had a caption device of any kind actually include all of the dialogue with no ommissions or mistakes. Kent Movie Scoop is no different. 3 of the theaters didn't work with the devices at all for several years and most of them have white lines down the text, don't turn on at all, read for the wrong theater, or don't stay up where Ican see into them. They need to be replaced at minimum. Assuming they work, a significant portion of the content never transmits to the device. A prime example of this is Avatar:The Way of Water where the Kent devices told me that the Tulkun were evil and must all die.
I can't help but think that a cheaper and infinitely more effective change to the pitiful accessibility policy and devices that corprate feels are adequate is to assign regular showtime slots when we can actually acess them instead of taking the entire Deaf community and shoving us in a proverbial corner so we don't cut into your profits.
The thing about the Deaf World is that we have to drive 45 minutes to get to an accessible showing and we will show up in droves. We don't fit in the corner. We are tired of being in the corner out of your way and if you insist, we just won't show up. There are hundreds of us within 45 minutes and thousands more who aren't in our Deaf world who use captions on everything anyway. We won't cut into your profits because you're already cutting us out. Kent moviescoop has my contact information. Make the...
Read moreThis is a nice, reasonably priced theater, especially on Mondays. I've gone here for years. But these last few experiences prior to the movie have been really disappointing. They have gotten rid of the screen with what's playing and the showtimes, I know we all check ahead of time but it's nice to have it there to see while buying tickets. They don't put the title of the movie on each theater anymore, just the number. They also don't do just ticket sales anymore, it's all mixed in with the concessions. This makes getting through the line take much longer. We went today and were in line for over 15 minutes just to get tickets. There were only 2 people working, which seems reasonable for a Thursday afternoon, but a few minutes after we got in line, one of them left to go do something else, leaving one person with a long line of people. By the time we got into the theater, the previews were over and the movie had already started. We went to a concert at blossom last night and it took us 15 minutes to get out of the grass lots, my husband joked that it's pretty bad we got out of blossom in a shorter time than it took to get our...
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