AC works great and will keep you cool, but even more effective is cooling the person directly. By running chilled water lines through the floor of the theatre - this idea works best if installed in new construction, retrofits would be difficult and expensive - and connecting said water lines to a small variable control mounted in the arm of the seat, thence to smaller flexible chilling lines in the cushions, the moviegoer could then command his seat to cool his back and thighs a little or a lot, according to his preference.

The benefits are these: the average cooling load would go down. Running chilled water would allow the cooling system to be modularized, and only the cooling units necessary to handle the present load would operate; the system would activate in stages according to how many people in seats were demanding cooling. If a showing draws very few people, then maybe only one small compressor runs to serve them. The air conditioning system (separate from the seat cooling system) could be made significantly smaller and quieter. Quieter would be really nice compared to the thundering huge units in use at moviehouses around here; they are loud enough to be noticed even during the movie - though they do add a nice background rumble during ominous scenes.

When the movie is over and the house lights come up, all the controls default to OFF and cannot be reset for, say, fifteen minutes, or however long it typically takes the cleanup crew to process the theatre. In this way, the seats don't get left on "FROSTY" all night, and saves the cinema owner a lot of money on utility bills.