People who have been to chennai or ones who hail from Chennai will be familiar about Satyam Cinemas. A couple of months ago, I thought of going out to a movie with my college buddies. And the apparent choice of the cinema was Satyama and the movie was Rang de Basanti. When I looked in deccan chronicle for the show schedules, the ad about the online ticket booking caught my attention. Logged into Satyam Cinemas’ online booking site. I was in for a surprise with a invalid security certificate warning me. I was still in a dilemma about the site’s security features. Anyway, it thought to take the gamble and booked 6 tickets online. The next hurdle I faced while booking was using a credit card. They don’t accept debit cards. Pretty weird! When I enquired about the same to one of their executives over phone, they said that their policy accepts only credit card bookings. What a great policy?????????
I somehow managed to book the tickets through a ICICI credit card. Thanks to my colleague. Good that Satyam charges Rs.5 extra for tickets booked online. The equation goes this way, for a booking of 6 tickets which cost Rs.110 each, you pay Rs.30 extra. Cool! when compared to the hassles of going to the cinema and standing in the queue for long hours. The ticket confirmation receipt can be printed and the tickets are to collected 30 minutes before the show. It was a very good and a novel experience to me. Outcome was that we enjoyed the movie well with our booked tickets in hand already! 
P.S.:-
Certain things are there for Satyam to work on their website .They are
- The expired security certificate
- Site is built in Flash. It degrades the usability features. And it does not work with ad-block feature turned on in mozilla.
- Acceptance of debit cards as a mode of payment.
I had an experience of booking tickets online in satyam cinemas recently and like u said it was very convenient as we could book tickets in advance in the comfort of the AC and snacks and we didnt have to rush to spot and be in the que in the heat. But ofcourse there were many usability issues in the site which i will explain later in detail.
About payment by debit card – I have an icici debit card (visa electron) and the user’s manual says that it cant be used on the internet. I think it should be the bank’s or the credit card company’s policy that it cant be used on the net. I use my ICICI credit card and online debit facilities to make purchases on the net. And recently ICICI provided me with an add on online credit card which I use now on the net.
Hmmm! But I don’t think it is a good pilcy to stop users from making purchases with a debit card.
I had the same situation while booking tickets using my debit card. What i feel is, they should be open to all available mode of payment, then only all can fully enjoy this offer. Hopefully soon they’ll over come with this issues
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Umesh,
Last month, I used my ICICI Debit card to purchase a gift from ICICI shopping portal.
recently i went to satyam cinemas.but i did not watch any flim because the ticket price is more.(Rs110)
I WENT TO SATYAM CINEMAS TO WATCH THE FLIM TRITUPAYALAE.I LIKE SATYAM VERY MUCH.BUT PLEASE PUT MORE TAMIL FLIMS.DO NOT PUT MORE ENG AND HINDHI FLIMS
Murali, I understand that it is a bit costly. I would not say that it is exoritant. The quality of service one gets is too good to resist. The facilities are better than other cinemas. I will prefer watching movie at satyam than any other cinema in Chennai. It is worth the money you spend.
SATYAM IS MORE EXPENCIVE
DEAR KARTHICK,
RS.110 is more expencive.do you know how difficult to get Rs 110 is……..
DEAR KARTHICK,
RS.110 is more expencive.do you know how difficult to get Rs 110 is……..
Murali! I do understand that it is a bit expensive and how hard it is to earn Rs.110. What I am trying to say here is that the hard earned Rs.110 spent in Satyam cinemas is worth it. And do remember that quality cannot be compromised with the price.
I have been trying to book online ticket for Munna Bhai Lage raho for the past 10 days but the site thecinema.in does not open. Is there someting wrong?
Midha
I don’t know as I don’t administer thecinema.in
Anyway, might be they are unable to keep the load under their belts and that might have caused your problem. That being said, tried opening Satyam’s online booking site now and it opened up in a jiffy. Best of luck! 
really a well maintained theatre in chennai
keep it up
opening of satyam ticket booking online site is just like
winning a prize in lottery.it is really very very sympathetic that a good movie house in a metro city is behaving like this in 2006.very very bad indeed.
It is really a pity that Sathyam cinema website is not accessible whenever there is a festival and the demand for tickets are on the surge.It will be foolish to think that
the management is not aware of it.
There is something fishy about it and it is really an injustice being done the the dignified patrons who
use this facility. Will the management take steps to rectify this atleast from the New Year?You can put a surcharge as per your wish for online bookings even if the tickets are to be priced at a maximum of Rs.50/- from 1st Jan. 2007.The Government
cannot question the surcharge even if it is Rs.100 per ticket.
great now the web site even is not oping for the past few days
page cannot be displayed
i check in all diffrent places
It will be better if u are accepting debit cards.
you can’t expect everyone to have credit card as most of the employees are been provided only with debit card rather than credit cards.Hence take this into attention and make sure that in the future try to accept debit cards as well.
IT IS VERY USEFUL FOR ALL EMPLOYEE
worth watching ….clean environment..etc…wat more…its really cool guys to hang out in satyam….
my experience with sathyam s good,in chennai the s the only place to go with family
BUT u see,there are few minus points,those to be currected
# one one of the theatre is exit is very narrow and know window or anything
bagwan na karen if anything negative happens there are know way to come out
# once i could see some workers are there to sell tickets in black ( i suppose to be no black selling and descent theatre in chennai,since everything s computarised )
# the parking charges are huge for 2wheelars and 4 wheelars
# outside food are not allowed in side ok,in that case inside eatables should be buyable not like 3tme higher
I WANT SIVAJI TICKETS 5 TICKETS FOR FAMILY
jhlh
Welcome bill gates.
jhlh – johnny has little honey
jhlh – John horn lawn horn
What do you mean by jhlh? I am going nuts.
good comment nandini.keep writing this kinnd of mails……
it will be good if pallikudam kind of movie played in sathyam
Hi wasting of time to discuss these things…..
eatables are very very very very very very costly
we can purchase satyam theatre ticket by online using debit card in chenni?…..plz reply me………….
well satyam s awesome
i book and al tat, but the thing is its getting booked fast!! the 1 main reason i book online s cuz i need the A row. but i was waiting one tue nite for the booking 2 open till 12, and i was checking every second and wen the bookings opened i jus clicked and wen the page loaded to the SEAT SELECTION page it was almost RED. DAMN RED. I really freaked!! i guess its the second week of aadhavan. So tel me a gud way 2 mak it rite 
as vidhya says the eatables are costly, but v cant help it cuz der r pple stil buy em and when they leave for break i hav 2 rush up 2 get some thing or else every thing ll b sold out!! tats F***** UP
Hai Iam Prabhu
Its possible to collect the tickets in door delivery
reply me