It is so convenient to buy movie tickets through online ticketing systems these days that we often take the whole process for granted.

But imagine a time when mobile phones were the size of bricks, Star Wars had only three parts, and computers still started up with such screens.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Image via Wikipedia.[/caption]

Or worse, imagine a time when none of these technologies even existed (Gasp!).

For the longest time, all the way up till the 1990s, the ticketing system for movie tickets were scarily manual and paper-based.

Here are the steps that you'd have to take to get movie tickets in those days:

Check movie listings, but not via internet

Since there's no internet or smart mobile device technology, you'll have to refer to the day's movie listings published in the newspapers. Or you'll have to head down to the cinema.

Movie listings can hardly be found in the papers these days, but they used to be published every day.

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Head to the cinema's ticket office to buy your tickets not via internet

Real cash and a real person were needed to purchase the tickets from the ticket counter of the venue you are intending to watch the movie at.

And in those days, there were no such things as multiplexes where a few different shows could be screened at the same time on different screens under one roof. It was one cinema with one screen showing different movies at different times of the day.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Broadway Cinema in Ang Mo Kio. Source: NAS[/caption]

Selecting your seat not via internet

Over at the ticket counter, you'll find a seating layout of the cinema, on which you can point to and inform the counter staff of the seat you want for the movie and timing of your choice.

Imagine it like this, but on a sheet of paper, in black and white, and using your finger to point.

Issuing of ticket not via internet

The counter staff would then record down that your selected seat is now occupied, write your seat number onto your ticket and issue it to you.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="832"] Old movie tickets with seat numbers written on them. Image via Remember Singapore[/caption]

From there on, your entry into the theatre and locating your seat is still pretty much similar to the present day.

Movie ticketing has come a long way over the years, so much so, in fact, that old movie tickets have become collectors' items.

Maybe someday, as we push into going cashless as a Smart Nation, old dollar notes will go the same way as these old movie tickets too.

Here are some equally interesting but totally unrelated stories:

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Top image from NAS and Ebay.

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