Upon applying, I was able to set up an interview. The instructions said it could take 3.5 hrs, which made me skeptical, as it is a part-time job doing concessions, ticket taking, ushering and box office, not some executive position, but I was interested in working in a theater again (and wanted extra money), so I signed up.
I read some reviews online, and it was more or less like what others have said. Confidence is key, and that seems to trump other aspects. It is done in three stages. Our group only had 5 people.
The first part was an ice breaker followed by a game where someone starts a story with a sentence and ends with "and" and the next person must pick up where they left off. It is meant to see how well you are at thinking on your toes.
Next we had to tell a 1 - 2 minute story of a party we had hosted or went to. They are looking to see how well you engage in the audience and how well you speak (as this is how they gauge you will engage with guests, which I don't necessarily agree with, but that's neither here nor there). Storytelling is no big deal for me, so I was the only one they said told a really put together story from start to finish. After that, we took a break (I believe we took a break in between the and game and the storytelling).
When they came back, they cut two people. One I knew for sure they were going to cut, and the other, I wasn't so sure about, but was a bit surprised.
We moved on to role playing. This was difficult, but important, so I hope this helps anyone interviewing. From what I can gather, confidence, in this section, means finishing the role-playing in the quickest way possible that satisfies the situation. One situation was a guest complaining about someone texting in a movie, another was someone sitting in someone's seat and mine was having to confront a co-worker on their phone. For all three of us, they said that it went on too long, and that wasn't good, as when it is busy, you'll have to take care of guest issues quickly (which I understand to an extent, but the role playing also went on as long as they wanted them to, as they were the guest/co-worker).
For example, with the first, they said he should have offered something immediately to the guest, but then, for the second, they said he offered something too soon. I went last, and they do ask how you felt after the fact. I told them, I felt really uncomfortable during it, as I would not go up to a co-worker, a peer, and confront them about bad doing, I felt that was the place of a manager or supervisor, as they were an authority figure. I don't think they liked that answer, as they said something along the lines of, if someone is passive aggressive with a peer, they can still be passive aggressive with a manager or supervisor (which I didn't think was the point as a supervisor or manager can take disciplinary action, whereas I can not, but again, neither here nor there.)
We took a break again, and then they came back with a bonus round. To me, that indicated they we thinking of cutting at least one of us, so they asked what we could bring to the company (our strength) and what we needed to work on (our weakness). After they took another break and came back and informed us they would not be offering any of us a job at that time. They basically said it was because we lacked confidence.
So, as others have said, make sure to be very confident through the whole thing (as they said there were spots where we had confidence and spots where we didn't). Though, through the interview process, this seemed like a job I wouldn't want to work. I have worked at a movie theater before, and managers and leads were always available and welcomed you to come to them if you had an issue/question/problem, from the interview process, they said if you come to them with an issue/question/problem, the first thing they will do is turn it around on you and ask what you have done and what you could have done to resolve the issue yourself.
As far as the role playing, their idea of confidence seems to be firmness. You have to say something from the start, stick with it and be insistent.
I feel I'm more upset about the fact that I wasted 3 hrs than the fact that I didn't get the job. I feel like you can definitely tell within 30 mins to an hour if you think someone is confident enough for what you are looking for, rather than wasting 3 hrs of someone's time, especially, again, for a crew member position.
I do hope this helps anyone that is looking to interview there and I hope you fair better than we did if you wish to work there.