It was a complicated weekend for movie theater subscription services, to say the least. The embattled MoviePass suffered severe technical issues on Saturday that prevented users from booking tickets. MoviePass also blocked users from seeing Mission: Impossible -- Fallout over opening weekend, saying it would make the film available "at some point in theaters" but that Peak Pricing may apply. Across the proverbial street, competitor Sinemia tried to manage the surge in interest as consumers looked for an alternate to MoviePass (with AMC Stubs' A-List also being an option). But on this particular weekend, Sinemia wasn't immune to issues:
This is a screengrab of a since-deleted Tweet that was posted on Sunday afternoon, as Sinemia dealt with technical issues that prevented users from purchasing tickets using their app. I know, because I was one of the users. The company claimed that their server problems were due to an influx of interest in the service thanks to issues at their chief competitor, MoviePass. That might be accurate. But it didn't stop users from taking to social media to voice their extreme displeasure.
As mentioned earlier, I speak from experience. It just so happens that I was one of the people trying to use Sinemia on Sunday to purchase tickets to a movie. It was my second time using the app, but only the first time that I wasn't able to complete the purchase. I was given the following Error message:
Which sent me to their Twitter feed, where I noticed all of the notes about technical issues that were frustrating the customers. As of Monday morning, Sinemia says their server issue has been fixed. And MoviePass has shifted over to now explaining why people can't use their service to see Mission: Impossible -- Fallout on opening weekend.
But it's clear that, in the realm of movie-theater subscription services, there are still a lot of wrinkles that need to be ironed out by the top dogs in the field.
