Cinema opening and closing checklist

• Box office: terminals and business date, opening float, today's sessions and prices, online sales, card terminals and printers, ratings displayed. At close: shifts closed, drawers counted, cash secured, card batch closed, tomorrow on sale.
• Concessions: equipment, fridge and freezer temperatures, stock and date labels, allergen information. At close: cleaning, waste, stock count, food stored or discarded.
• Projection and booth: TMS alarms, a KDM for every show that covers the last one, DCP ingest, show playlists with the right ads, trailers, format and audio, schedules that match what is on sale, lamp hours or laser status, a test clip for lens and masking, and a sound check. At close: TMS logs, failed shows noted, tomorrow's keys checked, projectors to standby.
• Auditoria: house, step and aisle lights, exit signs and routes, seats and recliners, wheelchair spaces, and assistive listening, captioning and audio description devices.
• Building and team: fire panel, first aid, toilets, team briefing. At close: public areas clear, doors secured, logs completed, alarm set.
• Cash-up: float, cash counted, card terminal total and the POS figures for both, with variances per day and for the week.

The safety items are general good practice, not a statement of what the law requires where you are. Fire, food-safety, licensing and accessibility rules differ by country and local authority, so add their specific requirements and your insurer's.

Enter the site and the week commencing date, then rewrite the tasks to match your building and equipment. Keep one task per row so the daily count stays right. Each day, mark every task Y, N or N/A; the Done row counts what was completed out of the tasks that apply. Anything marked N goes in the notes with what was done about it, and the duty manager signs off the day.

The spreadsheet fits each checklist on one landscape page when printed. If you prefer paper on a clipboard, the PDF has the same opening and closing lists with blank tick boxes.

For the booth items, the free KDM checker reads a key's validity window, and the accessibility device calculator estimates how many listening and captioning devices to keep charged.

• Cinema staff rota template: who is on shift for each of these duties.
• Film settlement template: the weekly reckoning with the distributor.
• Projection booth and DKDM in the glossary.
• How to open a cinema.
• Cinema ticketing software: online sales that match the box office.