Pieman, if you could lower your dividing age between adult and child tickets, it might help with those who keep magically changing their ages. Most cinemas in my area use age 12 as the cutoff. With a lower dividing age, I'm sure it would make it much easier for you to discourage some of the age changers. Perhaps your competition uses 15 as the cutoff for children's tickets, so it would be really hard to drop it to 12, but the lower you can go, the easier it will be to separate the groups.
Then again, the age changes might not be as much of a concern to you as they are a curiosity. I guess I'm just amazed that somebody 14 years old could buy a child's ticket. When I was a kid the dividing age was 12 at the local theater. When I would ask for a child's ticket at age 10 they would question me, "How old are you?" and to my sister "Is he really 10?" because I was very big for my age. They would then begrudingly sell me the ticket. The next year when I was 11 and going to the movies, I was prepared for another round of questioning my honesty (which I found very upsetting as a child), but actually felt relieved to learn they had lowered the age to 10, so I was able to buy an adult ticket without the iquisition of buying the child's ticket. At that time, the difference was probably about 25 cents, so the price increase didn't bother me much compared to the hassle I had previously received.
So, I guess the lesson I can glean from that experience is to be very careful when challenging kids on their ages. You could be alienating a potential lifelong customer. If there had been another cinema in my little town, I probably would have asked to go elsewhere in hopes of finding less hassle. Of course, the flip side of the coin is that some kids do lie about their ages to save money or gain admittance to a film they are not old enough to see. However, what can you do if someone who isn't old enough to carry ID is lying to you? Not much it seems. I guess we just have to be prepared to give some undeserved discounts to those seeking cheaper tickets. However, if someone wants to see a Rated R film, I have to say that I would require ID if their age was questionable.
I guess for PG-13 films, we might have the same problems as Pieman and the MA rated films in Australia. Kids can say they are 12 for kids' prices one day and then say they are 13 to see a PG-13 film another day. Since I am in the early stages for my new theater, I think I will make the dividing age a little lower, probably 10 as it was when I was a kid. Or maybe I can go with one price for all admission. That seems like a better solution, but it might not be the best choice for my theater. And we still can't check ID for a PG-13 film.
Short of issuing theater ID cards, I don't see any way to control the situation completely. We just have to determine what our policy will be and stay consistent. I suppose that is what all of you do as well. Determine your own policy and stay with it. For me it is going to be that we will require ID for rated R films when the customer's age is questionable, just like buying alcohol or cigarettes. I will not allow parents to buy tickets and drop the kids off. This is a conservative little town and I live here now, so I must be as conservative as possible. That way when I play a rated R film, I can at least say to those who are complaining that I'm playing it that I strictly enforce the MPAA rating policy and those that choose to see it are old enough to do so according to established standards.
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