Low Cost Cinema Through Dynamic Pricing

cinesprocket writes "EasyJet, the European pioneer of LowCost airline travel has broadened its horizon into the entertainment field. easyCinema is to open tomorrow in Milton Keynes, England, offering cinema-goers cheap rate tickets as low as 20 pence (33 cents) using the same formula that made their airline company revolutionise the industry in Europe. However, according to the the BBC, easyCinema is being given the bird by Hollywood who will not allow it to show it's high cost movies for a low price for fear that it will create a domino effect in the future, like the airline industry has felt (in Europe). Given that easyCinema is willing to pay the movie producers the same price as the other multiplexes, it shouldn't matter what price they sell on the tickets at for we poor folk? Their success depends upon showing the big films and their lawyers are reported to be already mounting a case. Given that the case will be heard in England, where the MPAA have less of a hold on the government, it will be interesting whether they can bring the behemoth to its knees."

Comments

Based on Slashdot profiling

[Anonymous Coward]

Tickets to the Matrix 2 would've cost $5,402,302.49 each.

Re:Based on Slashdot profiling

[Pingular]

Tickets to the Matrix 2 would've cost $5,402,302.49 each. easyCinema is to open tomorrow in Milton Keynes, England. That's £3,294,893.32 to you.

Re:Based on Slashdot profiling

[Bios_Hakr]

I think that's a little high, but I have no problem with a theatre charging $50 or $100 for an opening weekend. If a movie sells out at $7 a seat, then you'd be a nut if you didn't start charging $10.

Wouldn't it be nice to get in to see LOTR part 3 on opening weekend without having to deal with people who weren't really dedicated to seeing the movie? I stood in line behind two 13-year-olds who spend like 3 hours tryiong to explain the first movie to their grandpa. The whole time i was thinking "what a waste". Some geek isn't going to get in at all just because these wankers conned their grandpa into going to see it with them. If the price had been $20/seat, then I bet there'd be 3 more geeks in there that night.

On the other hand, it'd also be nice to be able to go see the movie a few weeks after release and only pay $2/seat. Keep the theatre crowded. As the seats start to empty, lower the price and keep it packed. I hate a crowded theatre, but from a profit standpoint, all those people are buying popcorn and cokes. It only makes sense to keep it packed by dropping the price.

Re:Based on Slashdot profiling

[Ewan]

My god, can you imagine watching LOTR part 3 with a cinema full of people really dedicated to seeing the movie?

I remember watching Star wars episode 1 with a friend who was a totaly fanatic, he'd read the leaked scripts online and so on, downloaded the divx version from america so he could see if before it was out here, he was saying the lines out loud as the characters said them - he was a friend and I wanted to punch him, let alone a cinema full of people doing that!

Re:Based on Slashdot profiling

[Bios_Hakr]

If he was a friend, then punching him would've been acceptable.

In any event, I'd prefer a theatre full of geeks to a theatre full of 16-year-old highschool lettermen trying to cop a feel from their cheerleading girlfriend while talking on their cellphones.

Re:Based on Slashdot profiling

[Ewan]

Here in europe the geeks would be the ones on the phones taking photos of the screen with messages saying "IM AT THE PREVIEW SCREENING OF LOTR3!!!!!" :)

Re:Based on Slashdot profiling

[Deanasc]

I'm pretty sure Hollywood doesn't care if the seats were filled by 3 geeks or 2 geeks and their grandfather. It's kind of elitist snobbery to say a movie like LOTR is only for geeks and that the "Normals" should have stayed away.

Oh and it's called matinee pricing. The seats are cheaper during times when it's harder to get customers.

Re:Based on Slashdot profiling

[friedegg]

I watched a preview release of Star Trek: First Contact in Washington, DC, and while I'm a Star Trek fan... some of those people were crazy. I'd never seen so many Klingons in my life.

Wha lawyers?

[Have Blue]

Courts? Why are there courts involved? Is easyCinema trying to force the MPAA to sign a contract? Is the MPAA trying to get easyCinema shut down even though they aren't doing business with each other?

Re:Wha lawyers?

[orange_6]

Exactly. If a distributor doesn't want a cinema to show the movie, they don't have to let them, they do own it.

If the copyright owner has a dispute with it, as opposed to the distributor, would that make a difference?

Later
Josh

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Throatwarbler Mangro]

Yes, easyCinema, in their way, is trying to force the MPAA into signing a contract.

If, like most /. readers, you follow[ed] the myriad Microsoft court cases (or browse practically half of the YRO section) you'll remember that there are some things that ordinary companies can do that monopolies can't.

Normally a company can decide who it wants to do business with. That's just common sense, not to mention an important facet of the free market. A monopoly, on the other hand, by virtue of being the [near] sole provider of a resource cannot be allowed that luxury. To make a borderline facile analogy: Suppose a pharmaceutical company developed a cure for cancer, and cornered the market on same. Also assume that have, for our hypothetical purposes, a near-infinite supply of same. Would we allow that company to refuse the cure to certain people, even if they were willing to pay the specified price? Obviously, this isn't an exact analog to the situation (this situation would probably be brought under charges of discrimination, rather than monopolism), but it servers the purpose.

Is the MPAA a monopoly? While I'm sure a large percentage of Slashdotters have a very strong opinion on that subject, ulitmately it remains for the courts to decide.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right that analogy sucks, try again.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[citog]

The courts are involved because the film distributors are creating a monopoly that keeps ticket prices artifically high. You could probably accuse the cinemas of operating a cartel also. easyCinema are prepared to pay the going rate to screen the movie but are going to allow the ticket price to be determined by market forces. However they are prevented from doing so because a monopoly is profiting from the exclusion of market forces. Therefore this is a case for the courts (in the UK and other EU countries) because consumers are impacted.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[blowdart]

Yes, easyCinema, in their way, is trying to force the MPAA into signing a contract

No they're not. The MPAA is American. Easycinema is in the UK. I didn't realise that we were offically another american state (although these days it does appear that way).

As for lawyers, well Stelios likes them. As he owns EasyJet, EasyRentaCar and others, he has a nasty tendancy to sue for any domain name that starts with Easy* and Easi*. When ICANN started ruling against him in domain disputes he stopped using it, and starting using the UK courts instead. He's got great PR, but underneath it all he wants his own monopoly on domain names. He finally backed down in the case of EasyArt. You may want to read up at easyprotest2.com and consider if this is the sort of person geeks should be backing.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Throatwarbler Mangro]

Oops. The American bit at the end of MPAA really should've given me a clue... Whatever the UK-specific lobbying group is called, it still represents the same faction: Hollywood studios.

Interesting link, as well. It also brings up an interesting problem; when you hate both sides, who do you root for? Stelios may be a total wanker, but I'm gonna' pick price-fixing over domain-name squabbling as the greater evil. That's a judgment call on my part, YMMV.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[KewlPC]

Except you forget that the movie's makers get their money from ticket sales, at least they do here in the US.

Even if easyCinema offered to make up for the difference in ticket price (which they aren't; they're just saying they'll pay the same amount for the right to show the film as the other theaters, which is very small compared to the film's actual budget), easyCinema's price for everything else (candy, drinks, etc.) would skyrocket (why do you think theaters charge so much already? When you only get 50% of the ticket price, you've got to make your money elsewhere).

Typically here in the US, the distributor gets 50%, and the theater gets the other 50%. The distributor then takes their 50% and divides it up amongst all remaining parties according to their contract(s) with said remaining parties.

And the MPAA isn't a monopoly. It doesn't make movies, it doesn't distribute them, and it doesn't advertise them, therefor it can't be a monopoly. The whole point of the MPAA originally was to be a non-governmental regulatory force (here in the States, it's the MPAA that gives the movies their (voluntary) rating; it was also the MPAA that decided the dispute between New Line Cinema and MGM over the name of Austin Powers: Goldmember), but its purpose has been extended a bit since then.

What's more, the member studios compete against each other, and none of them are monopolies.

If ordered that since they allow other theaters to exhibit their films they must also allow easyCinema to, it could be very likely that the major Hollywood studios would simply not distribute their films in theaters at all, since they don't make much money in the UK anyway (even non-fluff, non-action films make only a few million in the UK).

Ultimately, I think that this will hurt everybody: the big Hollywood studios, the UK studios, and the independents, since 50% of a 33 cent ticket price is only 16.5 cents. At that rate, even if everyone in the United States (population is approx. 280 million) saw a film, it would only pull in 46.2 million. And since the percentage of any country's population that see a particular film is incredibly small, films would make far less.

But how would this hurt the moviegoing public? Simple: far fewer films will get made (if any), they will be much shorter, and of far lower quality.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[junkgrep]

Ah: so businesses should collude to keep prices high.... why again? Can you explain what deviation from free market theory you're talking about here: why wouldn't an equilibrium be reached, whereby people's demands for quality movies would be represented accurately in how much they are willing to pay?

Re:Wha lawyers?

[mikeplokta]

Perhaps you should consider actually reading the referenced article before posting. First, easyCinema isn't going to sell refreshments of any kind, so it's hard to see how they can jack up the prices. Second, 20p is the minimum price, for those who book well in advance at an unpopular time. They're expecting an average price of £1.50 per ticket, which seems more viable.

And in any case, even if Hollywood only made $500,000 profit from distributing a blockbuster in the UK, why wouldn't they do it? It's still $500,000 that they can get if they want.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[oolon]

Yes and no, he is trying to get the film manufacturers to sign a fixed price contract so he knows how much to charge but they only want to sign the normal one were they get a share of the takings. Historically this agreement has been good and bad, it HAS ment that poor cinemas and low volume ones could take films they otherwise could never justify. Some cinemas would have never been able to afford the upfront cost (and infact risk). In the days of multiplexs and chains it has also been used laterly to milk big hits. I got to see Matrix reloaded at my local multiplex (I have 2 walking distance from my house) and didn't think that the 3 pounds (4.5 dollars) was alot to pay for my ticket, that would have bought me one pint of Guiness in london and lasted ALOT longer (some might say two long....)

James

Re:Wha lawyers?

[KewlPC]

They wouldn't do it out of fear that the idea would catch on among American theaters. So they'd just not distribute films in the UK (at least for a while), to make a point.

I don't know how things are over there, but here in the US people seem perfectly willing to pay $8.50 for a ticket. As an example, The Matrix: Reloaded made $134 million during opening weekend.

When it comes to concessions, I wasn't just talking about easyCinema, but rather to theaters in general.

But as others have said, you shouldn't expect anyone looking to use the airline industry's business model to turn large profits.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[IO ERROR]

As for lawyers, well Stelios likes them. As he owns EasyJet, EasyRentaCar and others, he has a nasty tendancy to sue for any domain name that starts with Easy* and Easi*.

Is this the same guy who owns easyEverything?

Re:Wha lawyers?

[RussGarrett]

Yup. If it starts in "easy", he owns it (the garish orange colour scheme tends to give it away too).

Re:Wha lawyers?

[matthewp]

blowdart wrote: You may want to read up at easyprotest2.com and consider if this is the sort of person geeks should be backing.

True, but we should also be able to move beyond tribal politics and recognise that we can support someone on one issue, and oppose them on another.

There's a wide variety of views here at Slashdot (though it's sometimes tempting to assume everyone thinks the same), but many here don't have much time for abusive monopolies. It's entirely consistent to support easyCinema on this, without condoning the company's actions in other areas.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[MisterFancypants]

Shut the fuck up, asshat.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[trout_fish]

Take note: the UK is not the US! AFAIA the MPAA is not involved in any way. Price fixing is illegal in the UK - simple.

EasyCinema will pay the same amount of money to the distributors as any other cinema. The ticket price is irrelevant. And they won't be making more from selling other products, they will be making more by charging higher prices at peak times and filling the cinema at off-peak times. They will save money by having the minimum possible number of staff.

Ultimately, it is likely to have little effect on the big Hollywood studios, simply because they have the power to make sure it doesn't. If it works, it will be good for consumers.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Omicron32]

But how would this hurt the moviegoing public? Simple: far fewer films will get made (if any), they will be much shorter, and of far lower quality.

Maybe, but they're hardly earning any money from me, because I refuse to pay ticket prices, so I just download them.

Unless it's a movie that just needs to be seen at a cinema, like Matrix 2, and LotR.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[darien]

True, but we should also be able to move beyond tribal politics and recognise that we can support someone on one issue, and oppose them on another.

Absolutely. I think many Labour MPs have come to this conclusion lately.

Besides, if Stelios wins this - and I personally very much hope he will - then other cinemas will have to start competing on price. Then the anti-Stelios crowd can have the pleasure of choosing not to spend money with him and STILL getting into the cinema more cheaply.

However, I have to say I don't think the legal position is encouraging. Last August the High Court upheld a European Court of Justice ruling that Tesco (a British supermarket chain) could not sell discounted Levi's jeans without the manufacturer's consent. It's not a perfect analogue to this case: Tesco were buying the jeans very cheaply from countries outside of the EU, rather than paying the full price that Levi's would charge a UK retailer. Stelios doesn't seem to be trying to do anything like that - he just wants the distributors to provide him with films on the terms they would offer to any other cinema.

But still the principle - that the producers of a product or brand can control how and where it is presented - is very close.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[darien]

Would be interested to know where you heard that. The way Stelios tells it, in his piece in the Guardian, it sounds like the distributors don't want to sign the normal contract either. To quote:

The single stumbling block remains the stubbornness of the major distributors. I'm spending a lot of time trying to sort this out. They say they don't believe in my pricing policy - they think it will encourage the same audiences to see films at a cheaper price, as opposed to luring a whole new audience who have been frightened off by the escalating costs of cinemagoing . . . I've promised them that I will remove the risk to their revenue by paying them a lump sum, somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand pounds, to screen their releases; that way they get paid even if I turn out to be incompetent. But they're not budging; they believe that when their $200m blockbuster can be seen for 20p, it cheapens the product.

Of course, he is a PR man writing for public consumption, so we can't take this as gospel. While he strongly IMPLIES that he offered to sign the standard contract - and that the fixed-price contract is purely a concession to the distributors - he doesn't say so outright. Perhaps a more skilled researcher than I could find out what's really going on.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Ed Avis]

I don't really understand why the movie studios would object to this. If they are getting paid the same amount either way, what difference is it to them whether the consumer pays $10 or $1? If you assume that the low-cost cinemas will increase the number of cinemas paying money to the movie studios, then they win.

Another way of looking at it is that any business wants its distributors to take a smaller cut of the final sale price, and a bigger cut for itself. If consumers are prepared to pay N dollars to see a movie then it obviously makes sense for most of that amount to go to the movie studios and not get creamed off by cinemas.

The situation with Levi's jeans is not quite the same: they are a luxury item in a way that movies are not; you wear expensive jeans partly to be seen in them, but nobody goes to the cinema in order to be seen at the cinema (unlike opera?). The movie studios needn't worry that fewer people will see films if they're no longer perceived as expensive. That's not the reason why people see them at the moment.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Zeinfeld]

True, but we should also be able to move beyond tribal politics and recognise that we can support someone on one issue, and oppose them on another.

The economic model that Stelios is trying is called penetration pricing. You sell at a loss, capture the market and then you jack up the prices once there is no competition. In the US where antitrust law is weak that is legal unless you are a monopoly. In the UK it is illegal regardless.

There is a lot of ownership overlap between distributors and cinemas, but that has been invesigated by the monopolies and mergers commission and ok'd.

It is not very likely that a UK court is going to decide that the distributors have no rights over the type and quality of the venues where their films are shown.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Ed Avis]

Yes but EasyInternetCafe is rather cool. You can even download PuTTY onto the machines and ssh somewhere to work. Unfortunately it doesn't seem as cheap as it used to be (was formerly two pounds for 24 hours, now more like L4.40).

Re:Wha lawyers?

[SN74S181]

but nobody goes to the cinema in order to be seen at the cinema

Actually, you'd be amazed at what clowns and idiots people will be at some of the big 'geek' film openings. Dressing up like Star Trek characters or Hobbits at film opening nights.

Did you think they did it purely out of an innate urge to look stupid?

Re:Wha lawyers?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

First, they state on their webpage (did you go there?) that you can bring your own popcorn into the movie. Second, by your reasoning, OPEC isn't a cartel, since OPEC doesn't produce oil (rather its just the members of OPEC that produce oil).

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Marx_Mrvelous]

Yes, people may be willing to pay $8.50 to see the Matrix. But why didn't these people go see so many other movies? Becuase they didn't think the ticket price was worth it. If ticket prices were lower, then the non-blockbuster movies would *also* sell out.

That being said, the price would have to be bout $2 for me to go see Bruce Almighty...

Re:Wha lawyers?

[BenTels0]

Courts? Why are there courts involved?

I would imagine easyCiname will be asking the court for an enforced license on all the movies produced by companies involved in the MPAA.

That aside, I think the MPAA may have shot itself in the foot with this one. If they've really refused industry-wide custom to easyCinema to protect their market, that's abuse of kartel-position -- very much forbidden under European law and with the potential of making the MPAA cannon-fodder for the Commission.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[BenTels0]

Actually, I wouldn't be too sure of that if I were you. There is already European jurisprudence that dictates that industry-wide shutout of a party from a resource vital to that parties business is not permissible (the McGill case, as I recall).

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Kvasir]

As a UK lawyer I have a few points to make:

firstly the MPAA's hold (or lack thereof) on the UK government is totally irrelevant, as over here in the UK we have an independant judiciary.

Although the Lord Chancellor appoints senior judges and sits in the cabinet (for the Americans out there: think of him as a presidential advisor + senator rolled into one), these are NOT political appointments.

Judges are expected to have no political affiliations (famously a judge who was an Amnesty International member was removed from a case about Pinochet's extradition) and certainly not to allow their opinions to influence their decisions.

This is completely unlike for example in the US where Bush can freely appoint Republican anti-abortionists to the Supreme Court.

Another difference is that the government does not interfere in judicial decisions. There is a huge outcry at the moment after the Home Office Minister told criminal judges to give higher sentences... even that was considered unwarranted interference.

As easyCinema's case against companies concerned: not supplying top films to a distributor could be considered anti-competitive and could well be in breach of both EU and UK competition law. I am not an expert in this area but it certainly looks to me like a good case could be made.

Especially as Warner run one of the biggest chains of cinemas in the UK...

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Fembot]

Some of the best films of our time have been shot on low budgets. They require little or no special effects to achive their purpose, and instead rely on the talents of the director, editor, actors, scriptwriter etc...

Real suspense is built in the mind not in the CG studio.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, easyCinema, in their way, is trying to force the MPAA into signing a contract

No they're not. The MPAA is American. Easycinema is in the UK. I didn't realise that we were offically another american state (although these days it does appear that way).

Huh? Contract law is international. The MPAA is an international organisation that deals in Britain. They are subject to our laws.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[blowdart]

Stelios doesn't seem to be trying to do anything like that - he just wants the distributors to provide him with films on the terms they would offer to any other cinema.

True, but on domain name issues he doesn't want to deal on the same terms as everyone else. Instead of using ICANN (he lost ICANN rulings), he runs straight to the UK courts. So it's one rule for him, another rule for everyone else. So if he wants companies to play fair with him he should play fair with others.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Golias]

I don't think that's true at all. If a movie's not good enough to be worth $8.50, it's probably not good enough to be worth taking two hours out of your life to go see.

Renting videos carries fewer demands on a movie, because you can sit and chat with your friends while a bad movie is playing on the TV screen. Going out to the theater means giving a movie your undivided attention, and I could not imagine doing so for something like Bruce Almighty or Daddy Day Care, so a ticket discount will do absolutely nothing to intice me into the theater.

But at eight bucks (actually, it's more like $7.50 for theaters in my area), I will probably see LOTR:ROTK at least three times on the big screen. In fact, I would probably do so if it was $10.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

In short... yes. They simply can't help themselves.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[mhesseltine]

I don't really understand why the movie studios would object to this. If they are getting paid the same amount either way, what difference is it to them whether the consumer pays $10 or $1? If you assume that the low-cost cinemas will increase the number of cinemas paying money to the movie studios, then they win.

Because, this affects the movie studios and their pissing contests as to who had the largest weekend opening. They don't brag about "50 million people saw our movie!" They brag about "$200 million on opening weekend"

If they had to track tickets sold, you could see from context that the movie was good/bad/whatever. Example: If you assume that tickets cost $10/ea (in whatever currency you want), and the movie opened to $15 million for the weekend, you can assume that 1.5 million people went to see the movie. In a country of 100 million people, that sucks.

By being able to brag about money, they don't have to acknowledge that fewer people actually see the movies.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Ogerman]

And the MPAA isn't a monopoly. It doesn't make movies, it doesn't distribute them, and it doesn't advertise them, therefor it can't be a monopoly.

True, but the MPAA is a tool of monopoly--or oligopoly, perhaps. And it is a significant political force in weaseling bad laws through on behalf of its monopoly-minded members.

What's more, the member studios compete against each other, and none of them are monopolies.

So why are all movies the same price at the theater? Surely this is not a free market solution. And

But how would this hurt the moviegoing public? Simple: far fewer films will get made (if any), they will be much shorter, and of far lower quality.

That's nonsense. All it would mean is that studios would actually have to be budget conscious for once. It doesn't take anywhere near $100mil today to produce a good movie--even one loaded with special effects. For example, there is absolutely no reason why any celebrity actor/actress should be paid megabucks to shoot one flick. Nor does all the glitz and glamour (and sleeze) surrounding the industry need to exist. And then you take into account how many absolutely worthless movies are produced. There is plenty of money in an efficient and free market version of Hollywood.

Fortunately, in a direct parallel to the changing music industry, technology will, in the relatively near future, make Hollywood entirely obsolete anyhow. If the studios can do photo-real human characters and sets today (ex. Matrix Reloaded), it'll only be 10-15 years at most before the same capability is available to every home PC user, likely even near real-time. At the same time, advances in user interfaces and perhaps even an element of AI will replace the need for hundreds of animation artists. So much for production costs!

Re:Wha lawyers?

[canthusus]

...it could be very likely that the major Hollywood studios would simply not distribute their films in theaters at all, since they don't make much money in the UK anyway (even non-fluff, non-action films make only a few million in the UK).

Box office sales in the US in 2002 came to $9,519m. Ticket sales in the UK in 2002 totalled £812m for the same period - about $1,300m. So the UK market is about 14% the size of the US market. No-one's going to give that up in a hurry.

Ultimately, I think that this will hurt everybody: the big Hollywood studios, the UK studios, and the independents, since 50% of a 33 cent ticket price is only 16.5 cents. At that rate, even if everyone in the United States (population is approx. 280 million) saw a film, it would only pull in 46.2 million.

I think you miss the point about demand pricing. Stelios isn't selling all his tickets at 20p. The price varies with demand. So if you book months ahead for an unpopular film on an unpopular date, you'll likely pay 20p. But if you decide last minute on a Friday evening to go see the latest blockbuster, you'll pay closer to £5. Twenty pence is the minimum; £5 is the maximum.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Zebbers]

what major film distributors are not a part of the mpaa...

*monopoly*

whatever unifies them into one entity, and acts as one entity.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[jweeld]

For the record, the distributors get more like 80% and the theaters get 20%.

To explain it in a little more detail, for a typical mainstream movie the split will be 90/10 for the first week or two. The next week or two the split goes down to 80/20, and the next week or two after that it goes down to 70/30, and etc. Consider that not very many movies last more than a few weeks in the theaters (Batman Forever anyone?). Also consider that distributors are demanding more and more--IIRC, for Star Wars Episode 1 the split was 100/0 for the first 4 weeks in the chain where I used to work!

For all the costs involved with running a theater, only a fraction is recovered via selling tickets.

QED

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

If you ask me, we need more cartels in the oil business. Maybe then we will stop artifically inflating the prices of renewable resources.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[mikerich]

The cinema has been repainted in that self-same homicidal shade of Easyjet orange.

I was waiting for a bus on the opposite side of the road yesterday and I think I might have suffered permanent retina damage.

The opening was delayed because Milton Keynes city council objected to the painting of the building in orange. They said it might bring down the architectural standard of the local buildings!

In Milton Keynes?

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[KewlPC]

Yes, but you won't even see many of those, and they'll be of much lower quality.

And you can forget about the epics. No LotR trilogy.

The fact of it is, all the tools in the filmmakers toolbox can be a good thing when used with some thought, discretion, and skill, and that includes CG. But the lower the budget, the fewer of those tools you can afford, and therefor the types of films you can make are more limited.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[KewlPC]

So why are all movies the same price at the theater? Surely this is not a free market solution.

Because the individual theaters don't decide the ticket price. The theater owners and the distributors have agreed to charge X amount of dollars in each area. Certain people, like George Lucas, have enough clout to get the theater owners to charge more ("If you don't raise your ticket price by $0.50, you can't show my movie.").

That's nonsense. All it would mean is that studios would actually have to be budget conscious for once. It doesn't take anywhere near $100mil today to produce a good movie--even one loaded with special effects. For example, there is absolutely no reason why any celebrity actor/actress should be paid megabucks to shoot one flick. Nor does all the glitz and glamour (and sleeze) surrounding the industry need to exist. And then you take into account how many absolutely worthless movies are produced. There is plenty of money in an efficient and free market version of Hollywood.

That's nonsense. The Matrix: Reloaded cost something like $120 million. Even independent films are expensive to make. For example, the indie film Greasewood Flat cost around $700 thousand, and had it been shot in California it would have been vastly more expensive. It's obvious to me that you've never made a film: movie producers are extremely budget conscious. Why do you think that so many films are shot in Vancouver? Because it's cheaper to make a movie in Canada than it is in LA (fewer unions, mostly). Of course, California (LA in particular) and New York are probably the 2 most expensive places to shoot a film in the country, possibly the world.

As far as actors, I've always felt that, in any industry, you make what you can get. If somebody is willing to pay you $20 million to do a movie, get it while you can.

When it comes to "worthless" movies, all I can say is that movies are hard to make. There are countless numbers of things that can go wrong and ruin what would have otherwise been a good film.

And if by an "efficient" version of Hollywood you mean the old, 1930s-1960s studio system, no thanks.

Fortunately, in a direct parallel to the changing music industry, technology will, in the relatively near future, make Hollywood entirely obsolete anyhow. If the studios can do photo-real human characters and sets today (ex. Matrix Reloaded), it'll only be 10-15 years at most before the same capability is available to every home PC user, likely even near real-time. At the same time, advances in user interfaces and perhaps even an element of AI will replace the need for hundreds of animation artists. So much for production costs!

Not everyone wants to sit at their computer all day. For most filmmakers, most of the enjoyment comes from actually being on the set.

And you seem to forget that as computing power increases, so do the demands for greater detail and realism. The CG humans in The Matrix: Reloaded looked horridly fake, BTW.

As far as AI goes, that's too ridiculous for me to comment on.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[KewlPC]

Actually, no. The 90/10 deal is only for big films.

For others, it's usually 50/50 or even 43/57.

In the end, it usually works out to around 50/50.

Like you, I have also worked in a movie theater. And any idiot knows that only a fraction of a theater's operating costs are recovered through ticket sales.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Ogerman]

The theater owners and the distributors have agreed to charge X amount of dollars in each area.

Exactly: collusion.

That's nonsense. The Matrix: Reloaded cost something like $120 million. Even independent films are expensive to make. For example, the indie film Greasewood Flat cost around $700 thousand

Movies like Reloaded are the exception, not the norm. And the quoted $700 thousand had it not been independent, would likely have been more like $5mil. Still a huge difference. And regardless, people see movies for their story more than the special effects. Unless you're talking Star Wars.

When it comes to "worthless" movies, all I can say is that movies are hard to make. There are countless numbers of things that can go wrong and ruin what would have otherwise been a good film.

That's a cop-out answer. The fact is lousy movies begin with lousy scripts.. usually written by people who have no literary skill whatsoever.

Not everyone wants to sit at their computer all day. For most filmmakers, most of the enjoyment comes from actually being on the set.

Some who cling to the nostalgia will always do things that way.

And you seem to forget that as computing power increases, so do the demands for greater detail and realism.

There is a breaking point where CG and reality are entirely indistiguishable. And it's not far off. Once it is reached, more computing power just means faster than real-time.

As far as AI goes, that's too ridiculous for me to comment on.
Not in 10-15 years, but perhaps 30-40. I'm talking about being able to describe scenes in natural language and have them appear before your eyes. It will happen at the current rate of technological growth. I can't but guess when.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[KewlPC]

Some who cling to the nostalgia will always do things that way.

It has nothing to do with nostalgia. Have you ever been on a movie shoot? It's a very different experience to direct a live action film than a CG film.

I don't really expect the /. crowd to understand, but live action films aren't going away.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Bert64]

Also the machines are more restricted than they used to be.... and would you really want to ssh from a public access terminal? I sure as hell wouldnt trust it.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[Ed Avis]

AFAIK the machines reboot and reinstall after every use, so trojaning them should be fairly difficult. I don't think sshing from a public machine is any worse than buying stuff with a credit card from a public access machine. I'm not that paranoid.

Re:Wha lawyers?

[kmonty]

It's not representative of Hollywood studios. In the US, when last has anyone actually watched a film produced from a different country? I mean really? In the UK, as in many European countries, the governments tend to have major input in regulating the [film] industry. Apart from standard censorship excises ordered by various film factions and bodies (which, incidentally, are more viciously imposed in the land of the "Free" -the Matrix Reloaded was given a R-rating, while in most Eu countries it has a 16 or even 13 restriction, with slight violence warnings), the UK government has a ratio system in place that requires at least 51% of entertainment film content to be European. It's not uncommon that European governments contest companies thwarting industries to become giant monopolies - unlike their US counterparts, that tackle monopoly problems when it's too late.

The average cost for a hollywood film ranges between 12 million US$ and 26 million $US (usually excluding major cast costing). The average UK film production costs between 3 million US$ and 10 million US$, so it's clear the major beneficiaries on cost would be the UK and Eu film industry if easyCinema is successful. Filmmakers rejoice when volumes of people watch their handiwork, the first rule in show business is always: the more viewers the merrier. The US tend to negate that in exchange for the more cash, the better.

So whether you're for it or not, this is a branding exercise - more people will be able to see films. If you're against monopolies, vote against, if you're for cheap screening of films, vote for it. Who cares if it's a wanker pushing the limits. That just adds to the existing wankers that's been doing that for who knows how long.

MPAA

[Soulfarmer]

should be US-only problem. If something, in this case rights to show a movie in a theather, is sold to europe, MPAA should not have ANY say in the matter. As long as both parties of the deal which gives those rights follow the deal.

It makes me angry to even think about any meddling from MPAA part on british, or any european film avenue for that matter.

Re:MPAA

[Anonymous Coward]

First, the MPAA has a subdivision or something called the MPA, which handles stuff outside the US. Second, the movie studios can sell to whomever they want. It's their movies (or rather, their members movies). I don't quite understand their logic here, but "they reserve the right to refuse service to anyone".

Re:MPAA

[Anonymous Coward]

MPAA should be US-only problem.

When the easy group last did something the content industry disliked, they got slapped down - not by RIAA, but by The BPI (The British Phonographic Industry). Presumably at RIAA's behest.

I'm sure there's an MPAA equivilant in the UK, and I'm sure Chemical Valenti will just give them a call.

[because they're US only] MPAA should not have ANY say in the matter

I agree. But I suspect they think they've already got the right to go into Europe.

Look at the US content industry's attacks on Australians and lets not forget DVD Jon

Re:MPAA

[malfunct]

Except (as it has been stated before) in the case that they are a monopoly in which case as the sole provider of the service they have less choice of who they sell to so long as those people are willing to pay the same price as everyone else purchasing the product.

Re:MPAA

[KewlPC]

Except that the MPA and the MPAA aren't monopolies. They can't be, because they make no actual product, nor do they have anything to do with the distribution terms of individual films.

It's the MPAA member studios that make the films, and it's up to those studios and their distributors to negotiate the distribution terms for their films. The MPAA has nothing to do with it. What's more, the studios compete with each other, eliminating any chance of there being a monopoly.

Re:MPAA

[junkgrep]

And this is known as collusion: which is the exact same effect as a monopoly. I guess if all the oil companies get together to agree to keep prices high, that's not a monopoly, since they are all competitors, right?

Re:MPAA

[KewlPC]

Except that, as I said, the movie studios are competing. Competing for theaters, competing for ticket sales, etc.

Re:MPAA

[EpsCylonB]

If a studio doesn't want to sell it's film to Stelios then it doesn't have to, I see nothing that can possibly alter this fact.

This isn't the same as the last time the studios were taken to court in 1948 (the paramount decrees). Back then studios owned their own cinema chains, you could only see an MGM film at an MGM cinema, this meant that independent films (that didn't have studio backing) would have a very hard time getting shown in cinemas nationwide. The courts decided that studios having control over production, distribution and exhibition was a monopoly and split them up.

I see no parrallels here, the studio's have a product, they want to sell it for a particular price (shares of takings) and Stelios could get films elsewhere if he wanted (they wouldn't be hollywood product tho).

Re:MPAA

[gilesjuk]

It should be up to the distributers really, anyway I don't care if they don't show blockbusters, I can see those anywhere. It's the smaller (often better) films that get squeezed out of the cinemas when the distributers start doing their dodgy deals.

Re:MPAA

[CashCarSTAR]

IANAL, but as far as I know, it's illegal to deny one customer the same terms as another. A merchant has to act as an impartial party, for the most part. There are exceptions, for credit checks and ability to pay, but if that is not an issue, the movie studios must accept the same terms they offer to the other theatres.

That is part of most legal systems world-wide, if my memory serves me right.

Re:MPAA

[EpsCylonB]

the movie studios must accept the same terms they offer to the other theatres.

Which is what the studios are trying to do, they want to take a share of the takings of every ticket sold for a film. Stelios wants to pay a fixed sum to have the right to show a film.

In this case I support the studios because the whole share of takings bussiness model means that small cinemas can compete with big cinemas, which under stelios's bussiness model wouldn't neccesarily be true.

Re:MPAA

[moncyb]

this meant that independent films (that didn't have studio backing) would have a very hard time getting shown in cinemas nationwide.

How is this different from today? In my area, there are only 3 of about 25 theaters which show "independent" movies, and the MPAA members have their grubby hands into most of those "independent" movies. Not just any members either--the really evil ones (Disney and News Corp) are in control of the vast majority I've looked into. I even went to one thinking some small time company produced it, yet at the opening credits the Fox showed up in the henhouse in big bold letters.

Let's also not forget the MPAA have total control over the ratings system, and most theaters won't show any unrated/NC17 movie. I remember reading a story about a Troma movie, and how the MPAA upped the rating because a guy eating a taco was "really gross." I haven't seen the scene in question, but how could eating a taco earn a bad rating? Here is what Troma has to say about it. (Using the Google Cache because the troma.com server seems to be trashed.) This story goes into it a little...

Re:MPAA

[EpsCylonB]

How is this different from today? In my area, there are only 3 of about 25 theaters which show "independent" movies, and the MPAA members have their grubby hands into most of those "independent" movies. Not just any members either--the really evil ones (Disney and News Corp) are in control of the vast majority I've looked into. I even went to one thinking some small time company produced it, yet at the opening credits the Fox showed up in the henhouse in big bold letters.

Your absolutely right, the film industry today is currently very similar to the Hollywood Studio system of the 30's, 40's and 50's (here in england there are even some cinema's owned by Warner Bros.). However we do get more independent films in cinemas today compared to 50 or 60 years ago.

I guess the important thing to remember is that there is nothing to stop your local multiplex from showing an independent film. The only requirement is whether the cinema thinks that people will come to see the film and hence make money for the cinema.

Simply put the reason we have so much formulaic Hollywood product in our cinemas is because the general public regularly spends it's money on it.

Re:MPAA

[timmyf2371]

Not as far as I know.

A customer (easyCinema) purchasing goods from the seller (a studio) would form a contract.

IANAL either, but contracts cannot be forced on either party. I own my own company, and I could very well refuse to sell to one customer for the same price as I sold to another customer.

Tim

Re:MPAA

[elphkotm]

No they aren't... the MPAA even schedules major blockbuster releases so that they don't compete with eachother.

Re:MPAA

[junkgrep]

Look, I don't know how dense you are, but the fact that they are competitors doesn't prevent them from colluding, acting exactly as one big monopoly. If given the option between competing and colluding, they can make themselves all better off, they will do so, as long as they can find some way to enforce the collusion. When was the last time you saw a price war between studios?

Re:MPAA

[xigxag]

Except that, regarding the issue at hand, they are not competing. Specifically, they are not competing on price. Disney box office prices are the same as Warner's, are the same as Fox's, Universal's. etc. Of course, the studios don't set the box office prices directly, but the prices are a result of the uniform rates they charge the distributors. In a truly competitive structure, a desperate MGM would charge discount rates vs. a soaring Sony, so that they could on price compete where they're unable to on quality. So the argument here is that the MPAA, as the negotiating arm of the studio system, does function as a cartel by ensuring that its product is undifferentiatable on the basis of price.

Re:MPAA

[KewlPC]

Really? Then why did The Matrix: Reloaded come out 2 weeks after X-Men 2? Why did George Lucas release Attack of the Clones 2 weeks after Spider-Man came out? Oh, wait, right, because the MPAA doesn't schedule the films' release...

The studios used to try to give the other studio's big films a wide berth from fear of it crushing their own films, but now it seems that this has gone out the window.

Understandable.

[m_chan]

The money for the release locations is in concessions. Get the body in the door, then make your dime. Ticket price is not the principle motivating factor in the business model of most theaters, regardless of whether they are first-run mega-plexes or indie houses. SUre enough tickets are revenue, but that's not your profit center when you run a theater.

Re:Understandable.

[Prof.Phreak]

Yeah. Make a few pennies on the ticket, make $20 on pop-corn and drink.

Re:Understandable.

[SchnauzerGuy]

RTFA...

"But that's not the only radical idea behind this venture. At Easycinema there is no popcorn stand, hot dog stall or pick 'n' mix concession. In fact, there is not even a box office."

...

"The sign above the old pick 'n' mix concession remains, but the fittings have been stripped out and it will stay empty. We don't aspire to be professional caterers, we aspire to show films people want to see James Rothnie, Easygroup The same goes for the old refreshments counter. If customers want popcorn at Easycinema they will have to bring their own, says Mr Rothnie. "When you look at the cost of serving popcorn it's actually quite expensive - you have to buy it, cook it, employ people to sell it, get a health and safety person to check it's at the right temperature. "Then you have to employ someone to clean it up after the show. We don't aspire to be professional caterers, we aspire to show films people want to see." "

Re:Understandable.

[frovingslosh]

Ticket price is not the principle motivating factor in the business model of most theaters

I disagree. I was visiting in Texas when X-men came out. Saw it in a first run, nice theater in the Dallas area. Matinee tickets were 2 bucks for an adult, Saturday evening tickets were $4. Back here in North Carolina the same tickets were $5.75 for the matinee show and over $8 for the evening show. Clearly the local theater was charging that to make extra profits, and their concession prices are so high that most people avoid them. Other local theaters (different chains) charge similar prices.

Re:Understandable.

[bmcphall]

If you go to their site, it proclaims that there is "NO rip-off popcorn". They encourage to bring your own, just do not make a mess.

They make their money by cutting the overhead:

"The efficiency of easyCinema starts at the box office which we have quite simply removed. Seats are booked online or by phone (soon to be available on a premium rate line), and the earlier you book the less you pay."

They also try to get a larger quantity of people:

"On average across the whole cinema industry and across all showings the average occupancy of cinemas is currently only 20%. Four fifths of cinema seats are going empty and yet cinemas continue to charge high prices. What we are doing at easyCinema is lowering the price in order to get more customers. We will make money as a business and more members of the public will get to see more films more often."

It crazy enough it just might work.

Re:Understandable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they charged more at night, it does not mean that it was "clearly" profitable. It just means that more revenue was generated from the night-time ticket sale.

Re:Understandable.

[m_chan]

Whether or not the parent post gave complete credence to their business plan doesn't matter. Your cut and paste from the fine article does not change the fact that movie theatre profit is generated principally from concessions, and should their model prove successful, others will copy it but won't mind paying the "high cost" of popcorn serving.

It is documented concessions are the principle motivator in the venture of showing feature releases. If there is sufficient demand for popcorn when the bodies arrive, it will be understandable when they will sell popcorn.

Re:Understandable.

[methangel]

So the money is made in concession sales? I still have my extra large cup from January. Best 3.75 spent evar. My wife just makes sure she brings her "concession" purse. Free refills!

Re:Understandable.

[Anonymous Coward]

You get +5 informative for a four letter cliche?

Re:Understandable.

[Zemran]

EasyJet is not as cheap an airline as it is cracked up to be. All other companies in the UK advertise an inclusive price so the comparison is ruined when you compare prices with EasyJet's exclusive price. He also runs a car hire business along the same lines. I do not use either as I prefer to know where I stand and get given an inclusive price that is not going to have loads of additions later. There are many low cost options here so it is not hard to find alternatives.

I already wonder how the cinema will work... buy a ticket and then get charged for your seat? Double cost sweets and drinks? (no, they all do that) A curtain tax?

Re:Understandable.

[KewlPC]

Ticket prices vary from area to area. It has nothing to do with what the theater wants or what the market will support, at least not directly. It's very rare that the individual theaters get to decide what they charge. Rather, the corporate suits are the ones who decide. There is constant arguing/negotiating between the MPAA members and the NATO members (no, not the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but the National Association of Theater Owners) over how much to charge for each area.

And the matinee prices don't really matter, since relatively few people see a movie during matinee hours.

Don't bitch about $8. In New York the prices are something like $10. Here in Phoenix, AZ they're $8.50.

I have a hard time believing that there exists a decent theater in a decent-sized town that still only charges $4 for a non-senior/child, non-matinee ticket.

Re:Understandable.

[KewlPC]

Except that no matter how little you charge, there are always going to be empty seats during the day, during the week, and for films that have been out for a while.

Re:Understandable.

[awol]

But the _REASON_ that most cinemas make their money from concession sales is that the distributors take up to 100% of _revenue_ from ticket sales, thats right, not 100% of profits but 100% of face value. (someone earleir said 90% but it is true that for something like Matrix, the cinema owner will get nothing from the ticket until about week 3 and they have to warrant that they will show it for N weeks. The whole thing is a complete farce (and a racket if one actually looks at it). And the classic side effect of this is the 2,000,000 screen opening of a crap film that we have started to see in the last few years. That is, a film that has tested badly but sounds interesting is opened on as many screens as they can get on weekend 1 (no reviews allowed beforehand) and then when everyone has seen it _and_ worked out how crap it is the distributor has still managed to get 2,000,000 x (3 or 4) screens worth of ticket sales in the first weekend, just criminal.

Stelios, is a bit of a rogue in some respects but more power to him. The movie industry is scared shitless that he will win and they will bo forced under competiition law to wholsesale their product at a fair price to the retailers, it may even be the case that their current pricing model is found to be illegal which would just make my day since I have hated it ever since I was "buying" films from the distributors for our student film club, and the distributirs used to whine about our ticketing prices since we were "affecting" their porofits by being cheap. It is jast a farce.

The cinema is a big lump of capital that is invested to show movies, even the multiplexes, the fact that they are forced into making money by extorting their customers with the price of popcorn and soft drink (or beer in Europe :-) is a feature of the criminal activity of the content creators. The ssoner it changes the better for everyone, including the movie industry since the stupid salaries and costs it currently endures would be vapourised by real competition.

Re:Understandable.

[Moirke]

I think the confusion, atleast for me, is the part about the theater being willing to pay the movie house the same rates other theaters pay. Most theaters, atleast here in the US, give almost all the ticket sales to the production company. That is say $8 a ticket, now if he is willing to sell his tickets for $1 and pay the production company say $7.75 then I don't see the problem. If what they mean by pay the same amount is pay the same percent, then I think we all can clearly see the problem.

You can't expect to see film's that have budgets over $100 million for $1!

Re:Understandable.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

"Then you have to employ someone to clean it up after the show. [...]"

Umm... I'm not so sure I'd want to go to a theater that allows people to bring their own food and drinks, and yet puts forth the impression that employing people to clean up any potential mess is a Bad Thing(tm).

I mean, standard theaters are dirty enough...

Re:Understandable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stelios is not looking to concessions to make money, he's changing the business model.

easyGroup want to pay the film distributers a fixed sum for each film they show rather than the accepted approach of a percentage of the revenue. This then means that the ability to make a profit then depends on getting enough people in to see the film to cover the fixed cost to show the title.

This is achieved by using the usual easyGroup approach of using dynamic charging (tickets start cheap and then the price increases nearer the show time, or as the cinema fills up) and also by having as few staff as possible. You can see this approach in use if you ever use any of the easyInternetCafe's - they have no staff on site at all and the busier the place is the more surf time costs.

Selling popcorn goes against this approach as you have to have staff not only to sell the items, but to clean up the mess afterwards. Staffing costs is the main overhead easyGroup and Stelios always try to remove.

On a side note, I don't now if they have followed through on this or not but the original plan was to have no toilets on site as well! Keeping the toilets cleaned and maintained put the costs up too much!

Re:Understandable.

[orkysoft]

If what they mean by pay the same amount is pay the same percent, then I think we all can clearly see the problem.

What problem? He is offering to pay the same percentage of ticket sales that the other movie theatres pay.

You can't expect to see film's that have budgets over $100 million for $1!

First, it's "films", not "film's".

Second, again: Why not? Think volume! If you can convince enough people to pay $1 to see the movie, all those dollar bills will really add up!

Re:Understandable.

[mbourgon]

Any idea what theater in Dallas that was? Our tickets (Fort Worth and Dallas) are 5 for a matinee, and 7.50 for a night showing.

Re:Understandable.

[TheRaven64]

Then you have to employ someone to clean it up after the show.

Are they not going to do this? People make a mess, especially when eating. It makes no difference whether the food was brought in or sold on the premises. After a short while, with no clean-up the cinema is going to look like somewhere I would not wish to spend the 2 hours it takes to watch a film.

Re:Understandable.

[Moirke]

What do you mean what problem he is offering to pay the same percentage? There isn't a movie theater in the world who wouldn't be willing to sell tickets for $0.50 and give 100% of it to the movie producer. The movie company only gets $.50 per ticket, instead of the usualy $7.75. So the local Nissan dealer says the same thing, I only want to charge my customers $4k for the Nissan truck. While dealers are normally charged around $9k for this truck that retails at $13k, I am only going to $3.2k, but it is the same percentage!

As far as think volume, if Nissan sold their trucks for $4k they would have a lot of volume, but still loose a lot of money.

Re:Understandable.

[Babbster]

Unless I'm mistaken (or the price-fixing in the industry is even worse than I imagine), the variation in ticket prices across the US is almost entirely due to differences in overhead. For example, it costs more to open the doors of a movie theater in New York than it does where I live in Portland, Oregon. It would presumably cost even less in someplace like Idaho. There are also likely variations in how much money people spend on concessions (popcorn, soda and the like) in different places, so that goes into it too.

Re:Understandable.

[jasonzzz]

The idea is that if a particular "non-Easy" theatre takes $100 Mil on a film, they give
the movie producers $90Mil. Easy-Cinema is
*not* offering to pay just a mere 90% of their
take, they are offer to pay that flat fee of $90Mil - the equivalent of what other "non-Easy"
theatre pays for 90%.

Re:Understandable.

[TheMidget]

On a side note, I don't now if they have followed through on this or not but the original plan was to have no toilets on site as well! Keeping the toilets cleaned and maintained put the costs up too much!

But cleaning the toilets is still cheaper than cleaning the floors or the seats. Ewww! ;-)

Re:Understandable.

[Blue Stone]

"I don't now if they have followed through on this or not but the original plan was to have no toilets on site as well!"

Well, as long as their customers don't follow-through, everything should be all right.

Re:Understandable.

[rueba]

Here in Westchester County, NY a regular ticket is 10.25$

I don't really care about pop-corn and such, if the seats are comfortable and the place well kept I could definitely like something like this.

Re:Understandable.

[jez9999]

Who said they were gonna clean the floors/seats? :-)

just to point out

[Miguel de Icaza]

distributors make money out of box office, cinemas barely keep themselves staffed and the doors unlocked on the ticket margins they recieve. Thats why coke and popcorn are so expensive and only come in two sizes: Xtra Large and INSANE!

Re:just to point out

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that to me that the sizes start out extremely small, then skip the middle, and shoot up into your insane range with insane price.

Just imagine...

[Code-Ex]

- Frequent viewer miles - Standby viewings - Movie ticket scalping - Last minute rushes for extremely low prices - Progressive/preferential seating and all those other "niceties" ^_^

Re:Just imagine...

[cheshiremackat]

You know what... there is a cinema in Toronto that offers *First Class* stlye services like on an airline... the tickets are 50% more, BUT you get a seat in a smaller theater, with Lay-Z-Boy type seats, free coat check (a nicety for Winter in Toronto), and a cinema Peon to fetch your popcorn and water (still have to pay though)...

So although it costs more, and I feel like a snob going, it actually becomes more reasonable everytime I see a movie at the *regular* (coach?) seating... Before the Matrix was 30 minutes of commercials, 5 (!?!) movie previews (1 good 4 crap), and waiting for the movie to start (before the lights dimm) there were slideshow ads on the screen...

Paying first class is certainly worthwhile, just to avoid all the advertisements!

_CMK

Re:Just imagine...

[gol64738]

wow, you've just described what all the theatres are like here in Saint Petersburg, Russia. the difference is the price: i saw the Matrix Reloaded for 150 roubles, which comes out to exactly $5.

Re:Just imagine...

[ozric99]

Our local UCI in Norwich, UK does that. Nice comfy couches and waiters to bring you your beer and popcorn. The last time I went tickets were £12 as opposed to the £4.50 that the plebs in the cheap seats pay ;)

Re:Just imagine...

[hey]

It's called the Varsity VIP

Re:Just imagine...

[isorox]

Filmworks in Manchester, UK, offers you your own box, at seat service of as much popcoorn you want, etc.

£15.

Re:Just imagine...

[awol]

Frequent viewer miles - Standby viewings - Movie ticket scalping -

Last minute rushes for extremely low prices

All the ideas you mention except the last one will probably work, the last one might work as well however, the "easyjet" model is that no one who books after you will pay less than you and that is the incentive to book early and thus allow them to schedule accordingly. To be honest it is really very clever. I think it might just work in cinema, and I just wish that (a) I had the idea first and (b) I had ther money to fight the distributors to make it happen, 'cause this is a big shitfight waiting to happen and hopefully it will make the movie industry rationalise.

Re:Just imagine...

[roju]

Where in Toronto is this theatre? Sounds like I may want to give it a shot some time.

Bring your own popcorn?!

[dev_alac]

If customers want popcorn at Easycinema they will have to bring their own, says Mr Rothnie.

Hells yeah! Instead of paying out the nose for chemical goop, you can bring your own $0.30 bag and your own $0.30 bottle of soda. Oh wait... I guess we do that already anyways...

Excuse me...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Where is the MPAA or the MPA (international version) mentioned in the BBC article? Or Hollywood for that matter?

Easycinema says it is being denied the rights to screen the blockbusters because film distributors are opposed to the company's radical pricing policy.

In short, they don't want to see their big-budget releases being sold for a song.

It's probably a safe assumption that the distributors are in the UK. Nice try at pushing buttons though...it did get your article posted. Next time throw in RIAA and Microsoft for real fun!

You also wrote, "...and their lawyers are reported to be already mounting a case." Really? Where was this reported? Reported by whom? Admit it...you made that part up.

Re:Excuse me...

[LiENUS]

like two lines down
Easycinema has a team of lawyers working on the case but it could be a long and expensive battle for Mr Haji-Ioannou, who will judge the cinema a success if he sells one million tickets in the first year at an average price of £1.50.

Re:Excuse me...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

d'oh! My bad...I guess I was blinded by the golden turnstile...

I retract that part of my comment :)

Re:Excuse me...

[TheMidget]

Next time throw in RIAA and Microsoft for real fun!

Actually, the site does indeed run asp. I wonder how much time until it gets hacked (must have a nice Sequelserver database behind it. Yum, single quotes!).

Also, some of their FAQs are quite fun.

Dominos are cool

[rice_burners_suck]

I sincerely hope that easyCinema appears, enjoys a lot of success, and causes exactly the domino effect that the MPAA fears. I want to see movie prices come down, and more importantly, I want to see this change affect the music industry as well. Finally, I hope that such a powerful domino effect causes laws like the DMCA to get taken out of the books.

Re:Dominos are cool

[Tancred]

I think we'll all agree there's tremendous room for price erosion in the music biz since it can be produced and distributed so cheaply. I don't think there's nearly so much fat to trim in movies though. It takes a lot of money to put together a feature film. And the big budget movies seem to be more popular (not always, but there's a correlation). Digital cameras, editing and distribution might help some though.

Re:Dominos are cool

[klang]

Ryanair, another of those discount airline companies, is already selling CD's at 9£ (that's cheaper than the 'normal' rate, by the way)

/klang

ticket prices/popcorn

[philipgar]

what I don't understand is how this company claims to be able to make any profit. The motion picture companies have the right to charge what they want for a movie, after all how else are we going to get 200 million dollar blockbusters? What doesn't make sense is selling tickets this cheap. Sure if you plan on making money off concessions you can get away with it. But their website even said that they encourage people to bring their own sodas and popcorn. They mentioned that most theaters are only 20% full. Makes sense, as most people can't make showings at 2 in the afternoon on a work day. But regardless of how cheap tickets are people still can't make the showings. They talk about making money in the margins, but it doesn't seem logical. If they have to pay a fee to the movie company for each viewer of it, then there's no possible way this makes sense. Who knows, maybe theirs some brittish law that forces motion picture companies to sell tickets in a certain manner. If this is true, and they'd be paying less pre viewer, then I understand why the MPAA or whoever would be angry, and not want them to sell tickets. As the information I see shows though, it just looks like a business model that will follow the dot coms to a massive crash. Philip

Re:ticket prices/popcorn

[SagSaw]

It makes plenty of sense. Lets say you have a theater with 100 seats. Lets also assume that a particular screening of a film fills 75 of the 100 seats. Any money you can bring in for the remaining 25 seats increases my profit (or decreases my loss). The trick is you still want to make the people who want to see the movie regardless pay full price. Also, IIRC in some (most?) cases, the licensing is by the size of the venue not the number of attendees. At least that was the case when student government showed films on campus at school.

Re:ticket prices/popcorn

[shaitand]

ok this place sells tickets based on how close to movie time you are buying it. Yes a ticket purchased a month in advance may cost you $.33 but how much do you think one purchased an hour before the movie costs??

Re:ticket prices/popcorn

[Big Mark]

One way to fill the remaining seats would be to let latecomers (i.e., those who've missed say fifteen minutes at least of the main feature) into the theatre for a ridiculously low price, say a pound a throw or so.

Think about it: you'd get almost everyone paying the full, regular price for the first time, and if it's a good movie they'll want to see it again. However, few films are good enough to warrant me paying the full price more than once, but if I could see most of it for a low price I'd probably do that once or twice. The cinema gets an extra pound or two, I get to see the film again, everyone's a winner.

Re:ticket prices/popcorn

[awol]

The motion picture companies have the right to charge what they want for a movie, after all how else are we going to get 200 million dollar blockbusters?

The hell they do. They are a natural monopoly provider of their material since they have stupid IP on their side. So given that they are a monopoly if they abuse that power to charge a non-economic price then that is an anti-trust or monopolies issue. The current pricing scheme of movie distributors is a crime. The fixing of retail price by wholesalers has been found to be illegal in most western jurisdictions for a _long_ time now. The way movie ticket prices work is pretty close.

As for how else do you get a 200 million dollar blockbuster, well first of all when the budget of the film stops being a corrollary to the size of the studios dicks, and they stop paying fsking actors 20M to star in a film, or if they, god forbid, had to constrain production costs like a real business then that number would quarter, but even if not, lets do the math...

Top, english language blockbuster, opens in US on 3600 screens spends four weeks getting a decent share of the cinema goers budget so lets say that on average these screens are 50% full and they show 4 sessions a day that is 3600 x 4 x 0.5 * 28, now for simplicities sake, lets say that is 200,000 full cinema sessions worth of people that means that each cinema session needs to get about 1000 bucks in order for the distributor to cover the cost of the film in the first four weeks in America alone!!!!! I woulod argue that the numbers above are pretty conservative, Matrix reloaded is currently trading at 130M in the first week or so. So the "blockbusters wouldn't exist" argument is just specious.

Re:ticket prices/popcorn

[SN74S181]

Sure. Let some cheap f*ckers who didn't even pay as much bumble in during the middle of the film. Even encourage that sort of people to show up late.

That's gonna really make the people who paid top dollar to see the film come back again....

Re:ticket prices/popcorn

[SN74S181]

That's really weird, man. You think that because of copyright law, the film producers are a monopoly?

Wow. It must be some kind of a cartel and very horizontal. They must own ALL the film-making equipment and all the raw film itself, too.

Really, you anti-IP people are starting to show your hand of cards too readily. It's getting to be too easy to figure you out for who you are.

Re:ticket prices/popcorn

[Leigh13]

Great post. Yours was the first that I saw that touched on the relative fullness of the theatre:

They mentioned that most theaters are only 20% full. Makes sense, as most people can't make showings at 2 in the afternoon on a work day. But regardless of how cheap tickets are people still can't make the showings.

I was just talking about this with my roommate... about how the movie experience is that much worse when the theater is full. I mean, I love seeing a movie on the big screen, but I hate sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with some asshole who can't figure out how to turn off his cell phone ringer. Especially where I live now in the city, the people love to shout at the characters on the screen ("You go, GIRL!") and throw stuff now and again. And these are grown adults...I think the last time I threw M&Ms at the screen I was in 7th grade and there was nothing else to do besides hang out at the mall. But I digress.

So yeah, it's a lot more enjoyable to see a movie at 5:30 on a Tuesday, when there are five other people in the theater and you can actually see the picture in peace. (And you can put your feet up too, gotta love the stadium seating.)

So what I'm saying is that even if it does mean paying a little less, I'd rather not go to a theater that's full all the time. Maybe I'm part of the minority here, but I just can't see this Easycinema being popular enough to support itself under their plan. I mean, I'm freaking dying to see Matrix Reloaded, but I'm willing to wait a little longer until after the crowds die down. After all, we waited what, three years since the last one?

I will admit though, there hasn't been another movie since the Matrix that got me doing kung-fu on the way out to the parking lot. And air guitaring Rage Against the Machine songs. My friends hated me for weeks.

Okay, next post starts after these important words:

Re:ticket prices/popcorn

[jez9999]

So let's see. We've got a cinema, with really rather dated display and sound equipment (this was the first ever multiplex built in the UK) and no real staff. The theater is full, noisier, more cramped, and there are mobile phones going off everywhere because there is nobody to stop them. Meanwhile, people are tumbling in late, because it's so cheap to do so, and this is pissing you off because you paid a higher price than them, and they're obstructing your view of the screen as they climb OVER you to get to the few remaining seats. You're thirsty (no drink) and hungry (no food), and swimming in rubbish (no cleaners). You're surrounded on all sides by people because the movie theater is now 100% full. About half way through the movie, you take half an hour to stumble out of the theater, climbing OVER everybody next to you, and start to search for a toilet. Alas, this search is in vain, because they have scrapped the toilets (too expensive). After having left the building to find a toilet and missed half the film, you eventually climb over people to get back to your seat again.

Won't you come to EasyCinema?

Why not?

[Viceice]

As it stands, in some parts of the not so rich world , movie tickets are just about equel that in value.

So what if the lowest possible ticket price is 33 cents? it's just like booking a really cheap flight.. teh cheapest one being the 3 a.m flight which you have to book 6 months adead for.

Why not have it like in a real theather, where the better seats, say smack right in the center, are more expensive then the left most seat in the front row?

You get to advertise cheap and you have the option of paying less for a crappy seat.

Re:Why not?

[Kwikymart]

The movie industry relies on first come first serve seating. I think assigned seating would spawn a whole new fad of calculating the end of the 15 minute advertisement and preview spiel so you can well, avoid wasting 15 minutes of your life as a zombie/whore. The MPAA would NOT stand for this either.

Re:Why not?

[Repton]

Huh? Cinemas here generally do assigned seating, and have done for years. We still get the big movies..

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

You live in New Zealand. Need I say more?

Re:Why not?

[Viceice]

Not where i'm at. We get a ticket with a number on it. but you're free to change seats if you want to when the show starts, and theres space.

Re:Why not?

[hswerdfe]

I've taken to boycotting the ads.

when the ads start, I pull my shirt over my head, and plug my ears.

I'ts not 100% effective, not even close, but it's I kind of see those ads the same way as I see spam.

the screen's to big to ignore,
and you can't show up late and get a good seat.

plus it has the added bonus of confusing the people next to me...:D

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

The day Landmark Theatres start showing advertisements is the day I stop going out to movies! (Movie previews are OK. Car commercials are not.)

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same basically all over Europe

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

when the ads start, I pull my shirt over my head, and plug my ears.

I'll bet you're a regular Mr. Smooth with the ladies.

Re:Why not?

[dbirchall]

The local cinema chain (Wallace, I think) owns two facilities here in town - a multiplex of perhaps 8 screens at the mall, showing first-run stuff for US$5 and up ($5 is the matinee price, not to be confuse with a manatee price), and a second-run theater (2 screens, I think) in the historic downtown. Until recently, the second-run one was charging about $2 a show, but prices there just got slashed to $0.50 for matinees and $1.00 for evening shows.

This will definitely impact our interest in second-run shows. Even our 3-year-old will probably understand that blowing 50 cents on a little "ride-on" thing at the mall that lasts 5 minutes isn't as good a deal as getting to see a movie that lasts an hour or two for the same price.

Even if their current kid's fare is little more than regurgitated cartoon videos, it's hard to feel one's thrown money away at that price.

Re:Why not?

[blair1q]

Movie pricing is kept simple because, traditionally, moviegoers are simpler than theatergoers.

The popularity of The Matrix trilogy should prove that.

Re:Why not?

[Viceice]

Whats with you? I find that the ad's they run in Cinemas aremore interesting and better executed then teh crap they show on TV.

Like the Visa one.

Hollywood == volume

[yerricde]

Where is the MPAA or the MPA (international version) mentioned in the BBC article? Or Hollywood for that matter?

How many movies first published by Hollywood studios make it to the UK versus movies first published by British studios? As far as I know, Hollywood is second only to Bollywood (India's movie industry) in movie output.

Bout time

[mlerner]

Here in Canada the local theater is quite pricey: $10 Canadian for a ticket $10-$20 Canadian for popcorn and a drink Of course I could go to a smaller theater but I don't have a car and they are pretty small.

Correction -- not really connected with easyJet

[fm6]

This is yet another venture by Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the seventh of his easy* ventures. One of these is easyJet, but he's no longer involved with the management of that company.

Morpheus

[craigtay]

This is MY easycinema

I don't understand....

[zakezuke]

Ok.. man has a vision of creating a profitable enterprise where users pay a small sub $1.00 fee to see a movie, and is willing to pay moolah for big name hollywood films.

This sounds terrific.

the "domino effect" I see is in order for such an enterprise to make a profit, many people will have to go see the movie, which given the cost this still sounds great

sooo... as a result... other theaters might actually have to lower ticket prices to attract more people

What's the big fucking deal?

More people watching the films is good... A strive to lower prices, if the number of people increases enough so profits don't decrease, sounds quite fab to me.

Furthermore, atleast in my little part of america, there is a drastic lack of things sub 21 year olds can do (legaly). Rather then wondering the streets causing trouble, they could catch a film on pocket change. Sure beats the park scene, hang out till the cops chace you away.

If I can catch a film at sub $1.00, then i'm far more likely to actually spend that $1.00 then download the matrix, a film that dispite it's popularity, i'd never pay usd$6.50 -> $7.00. But I'm curious enough to go see it for sub $1.00.

It sounds like this person has the answer to the pre-video release piracy problem.

Re:I don't understand....

[Throatwarbler Mangro]

The big deal is that the studios, contrary to all evidence and public opinion, aren't necessarily always stupid and short-sighted. At least not in this instance, since it's in their best interest.

The "domino effect" you speak of is the competition of the free market. If a few theaters are drastically cheaper than the others, they will start to attract more business. The other theaters will all have to follow suit to maintain customers. The inevitable price war will whittle margins down to nothing.

What does that have to do with the studios? They sell their films to the theaters at a flat rate. When all the theaters are no longer pulling in the money like they used to, they can band together to demand lower prices. Thus, the studios have to start lowering their prices as well.

Re:I don't understand....

[AvantLegion]

Furthermore, atleast in my little part of america, there is a drastic lack of things sub(-)21 year olds can do (legaly). Rather then wondering the streets causing trouble, they could catch a film on pocket change.

From the looks of things, they needs ta' worry more 'bout gettin' sum good english books for skools 'round them parts.

Re:I don't understand....

[zakezuke]

The "domino effect" you speak of is the competition of the free market. If a few theaters are drastically cheaper than the others, they will start to attract more business. The other theaters will all have to follow suit to maintain customers. The inevitable price war will whittle margins down to nothing

So, what you are saying is that studios are anti-free market and are creating an enviroment where artifical price fixing is the practice, and damned anyone who actually has an inovative way of presenting the media to customers breaking the traditional monopoly.

Pardon me if I don't agree with you on the whole.

I see movie piracy and bootleging being a very large thorn in the side of studeos. Why pay $7.00 when you can download freely. Right or wrong, this is becomming more common practice. It's not just Hong Kong anymore, I know localy I can pickup bootleg theater releases in not quite so mainstreem stores at $3.00 a pop.

These days, I don't see alot of movies in the theater. It's a budget thing... for the cost of one ticket, I can have two latte's. If the fee was cut in 1/2, i'd visit the theater more often. If the fee was cut by 1/4... i'd see even more movies. if the fee was cut by 1/8th, well now, i'd cancel my cable telivision subscription and go out and see a fucking movie.

Then there would still be a choice... something kinda subscription based... and the more traditional theater that you can often pickup tickets before the show, get some popcorn, and see a movie.

My logic is very simple... empty seats = lost income. So often are we tied to the belief of lowering prices too much would just be bad cause consumers would come to expect it. I imagine in retail this is why clothing is often destroyed rather then being given away for fear of apearing like you are some bargin basement. Heaven forbid actually lowering prices to actually move stock, that would be silly wouldn't it.

The belief that empty theater seats some how serves a higher purpose is equality silly. If it can be shown that you can create an equal or greater 22x demand for tickets by lowering prices for tickets by 1/22th, isn't it common sence. For the more traditional theater, heaven forbid lower ticket prices would create an increased demand for trivial things like popcorn.

I see prices as low as was 33 cents a film as a great means of actually getting people to see ye old silver screen again, rather then their home TV. I would easily see more then 22 films a year at that price. And hell, if they had a starbucks, i'd get an overpriced latté too!

It's only common sence.

Re:I don't understand....

[malfunct]

So you advocate a system of monopolies and price fixing? You don't sound like the normal /. anti-corporation, free-software drone I'm used to seeing around here.

Free market forces are a good thing, prices should tend toward the marginal cost in the presence of competition.

Re:I don't understand....

[bagsc]

Theory of Constraints teaches us that the bottleneck here is the theatres. They're already full for blockbusters, weekend nights, etc. Quantity sold is a constraint. To maximize profit, you need to maintain quantity of tickets sold at exactly full capacity - lowering prices when you can't fill on Saturday night and raising prices when lines are long.
Supply and demand here is all f'd up. A decrease in price for the tickets means a decrease in revenue for theatres, which means theatres are less valuable (less likely built, more likely closed), and the audience base (limited by profit maximization to seats in theatres) will contract.

Re:I don't understand....

[Throatwarbler Mangro]

Pardon me if I don't agree with you on the whole.

I hope you'll extend me the same pardon for being slightly shocked at finding a slashdotter who isn't entirely jaded and cynical in regards to the entertainment industry. It's almost...refreshing.

I see movie piracy and bootleging being a very large thorn in the side of studeos.

I think this is an entirely different issue to the topic on hand. This is a case of a company wishing to purchase redistribution rights at the going rate. No one is infringing on anyone's copyright. In fact, I think a far better parallel would be EULAs as opposed to P2P. The studios are regarding easyCinema as a licensee of their product, and as such have seen fit to dictate the manner in which it is redistributed. In fact, viewing in that manner, I think it brings into focus how complex this issue actually is.

If it can be shown that you can create an equal or greater 22x demand for tickets by lowering prices for tickets by 1/22th, isn't it common sence.

No, because now you have 22x the maintenance costs (i.e. 22x as many to people to clean up after, attend to, print tickets for, provide bathrooms for, etc.) for the same profit. There's a point of diminishing returns. If half the price brings in triple the customer, then you might have something. But at this point, I think that's mostly a mathematical quibble.

Re:I don't understand....

[Throatwarbler Mangro]

On the contrary, I was trying to state from the studios point of view why they have a problem with easyCinema's pricing scheme. Frankly, I do believe that they are engaging in price fixing, and find it rather appalling. On review, I don't think I made that very clear.

Re:I don't understand....

[zakezuke]

There indeed is a constraint... which is why this system seems rather cool. As it seems to be web based, it should be rather easy to shuffle around people to match show times to maxamize seat filling. Besides, obviously the person doing this in the first place things that demand and supply would be profitable. Why not let the bugger try and see what happens.

As I already stated, at such a low fee of 33cents a flick, it's likely quit buying cable TV, and get some form of monthly subscription to the theater. I'd be more flexable as to when I saw films. Assuming a flick a day, that's roughly $10.00 monthly assuming .33 cents a flick.

Movies on the spir of the moment, $7.00

Movies getting shuffled through an onlue cue designed to maximize seats... .33 cents.

As far as decrease in prices = decreased margins... I don't see that. If lowering prices results in proportionate demand without exceeding constraints... I see this as being good. If increased demand results in increased popcorn sales, I see this as being also good.

Re:I don't understand....

[zakezuke]

No, because now you have 22x the maintenance costs (i.e. 22x as many to people to clean up after, attend to, print tickets for, provide bathrooms for, etc.) for the same profit. There's a point of diminishing returns. If half the price brings in triple the customer, then you might have something. But at this point, I think that's mostly a mathematical quibble.

Well as illistrated in the post to begin with.... part of cost cutting would be end users printing their own barcoded ticket. That point is moot. As far as 22x the maintance cost, well without food being sold that point is moot as well. Besides, cleanup is typicaly a fixed value for your average theater, based on how long it takes for 1 or two guys to shove a large broom across a room. Never have I seen a case where showtime has been delayed by an unexptected influx of people. In your ideal world, cleaning the seats doesn't mean cleaning just the seats people sat in, it means cleaning all the seats.

Yes, i'll agree the fact that maintaince costs likely be more with more people. That's a given. But many of health code required procedures for theaters, atleast where I live, require the same level of attention wether or not 1 or 100 sit in that theater. Your logic would hold true for stuff that is more difficult to just sweep away, such as soda, but i've never honestly seen a showtime delayed due to excessive soda being on the floor. But this this point is moot.

At Easycinema there is no popcorn stand, hot dog stall or pick 'n' mix concession. In fact, there is not even a box office. :P

Re:I don't understand....

[bonaldi]

.. something kinda subscription based...
UGC cinemas in Britain offer a £10 a month unlimited movies deal. It's fantastic. It makes money for them on the months you see few movies, and when you want to see loads, your price per film plummets.

They also offer card holders special preview screenings and bring-a-friend offers. Only problem is the screens are understaffed, so bams run wild - I've seen mobile phone calls being *made* - and the evening showings start at 5.40. I finish work at 6. That aside, it's genius

Other viable "Easy" markets?

[SalTerre]

After reading their 'about us' section it really does make sense. Most theaters are only at 20% occupancy - if even that - when you adjust for all the time slots. You just automate the hell out of the process, do online ticketing, market, get publicity from Hollywood crybabies, and profit.

Now why the crap is this business technique only working in Europe? Don't we churn out more MBAs and consultants than any other country.

There's got to be American demand for this sort of thing. Professional sports? Collegiate sports? Rental businesses - like rollerblade parks or classic rollerskate rinks? Fitness centers? Museums? I NEED MORE EXAMPLES I'VE GOT TO START ONE OF THESE!!!

The road to the top of the bell curve is paved with mediocrity

Re:Other viable "Easy" markets?

[zakezuke]

I think the major diffrence between the euro market for entertainment and the american market is the availablity of bathrooms.

I think this goes back to the fact that america was founded by religious zelots, fanatics who were so off the mark they were ejected from their motherland for just being too freaky weird, many who were considered too strict to be part of civilized culture.

In america, it's uncommon to see public restrooms. A recent bus trip I took between cities, there just wasn't a bathroom available that I could use. The city doesn't provide it for their public transport, store staff glare at you for the request, and it's generally a pain in the butt. I feel this is a result of a slightly more pure living attitude left over from some of our founders.

Theaters pretty much have to provide them, as you are traped in a building for atleast two hours, drinking that super size soda that cost just 25cents more. I see more access to facilities limiting the demand on theaters, where as in america, they paid their money and can't go anyplace else.

I imagine that the euro market differs from the american model in the restroom department as there can be some spillage if the level of facilities are inadquate to facilities that exist out side the theater walls. Less in the way of maintance i'd imagine.

Re:Other viable "Easy" markets?

[MartinB]

Ummmm where do you think Stelios got the EasyJet business model from? Answer: SW Air.

Re:Other viable "Easy" markets?

[spRed]

In america, it's uncommon to see public restrooms. A recent bus trip I took between cities, there just wasn't a bathroom available that I could use. The city doesn't provide it for their public transport, store staff glare at you for the request, and it's generally a pain in the butt.

As an American, I can't say I've ever had trouble finding a bathroom when I needed one. Especially on car trips, ever heard of a gas station? I would say this is a cultural thing, if there are lots of clean bathrooms you don't plan ahead. If the public bathrooms are highly variable you do plan ahead. If the phrase in American movies "does anyone have to go before we leave?" seems odd to you, this might be right.

On the other hand, to one up your *cough* suggestion that we have fewer bathrooms because we were founded by religious freaks, perhaps they have to put bathrooms every five feet on the continent because people will piss where they stand regardless if there is a toilet there or not.

Re:Other viable "Easy" markets?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now why the crap is this business technique only working in Europe? Don't we churn out more MBAs and consultants than any other country.

Exactly, thats why European companies always come up with these kind of ideas. Its non conventional thinking that results in things like Easyjet/car/cinema.

RTFA!

[cheshiremackat]

RTFA!!!

There are NO Concessions at this cinema... you want popcorn, you bring your own...

This (IMHO) is a pretty dumb idea (concessions)... the Margins on popcorn and soft drinks are on the order of thousands of percent... one of the reasons easyCinema isn;t selling popcorn is the cost of cleaning it up, BUT if people bring their own, they still will have to.

This raises a few other questions... I am unsure how this venture will make any money, firstly concessions and adverts before the movie are huge profit centres for cinemas, cutting them out will certainly hurt business. Also for the *best* movies out there (Matrix, LOTR, et al.) the studio gets almost 100% of the box office revenue for the first few weeks, and then a declining percent as the movie continues... easyCinema would have to go 2-3 weeks with no revenue from the Matrix, just to show it, let alone cover the fixed costs (lighting, heat, staff)...

HOWEVER... they will most likely win their suit to get to play the movies, as long as they agree to pay what the *going rate* is... there is a company (galaxy cinemas) that does something similar... they pay the *going rate* for a film, then charge one price to get in... no senior discount, no matinee discout, no child prices... everyone pays the same price, BUT the kicker is that the price is 1/2 of the competing adult price at Loews...

Also, since a lack of staff seems to be a significant part of their (easyCinema) business strategy, what is stopping me and my pals from simply hopping the gate? If they are going to have an usher(?) or two checking tickets, how different is this from a traditional cinema? No cost savings there...

_CMK

Re:RTFA!

[citog]

Take your own advice - RTFA. James Rothnie states that the cost of serving popcorn is expensive. Unless you know something he doesn't about f&b then don't write it off as a "pretty dumb idea". A crucial part of their business model is to minimise their overheads. By not employing people to sell low return products they are reducing staffing costs. This saving is significant. Yes, they still pay for cleaners but they probably require fewer of these. As for you and your mates hopping the gate, contract security guards will probably handle that problem. They are cheaper than having dedicated ushers and quite effective.

Re:RTFA!

[cheshiremackat]

what!? Rent-a-cop security is going to be CHEAPER?! than minimum wage first job ushers?

As for selling popcorn, I *know* that selling is the 2nd cheapest part... (besides making, kernels are dirt cheap)... think about it... a bag of popcorn costs in materials less than .10... so even if you pay better-than minimum wage, selling popcorn at $3-5 a bag, means what 1-3 bags an HOUR?! to cover costs... no the article is incorrect, selling is not expensive, the expense is in CLEANING... which they will have to do anyway.

(Cleaners usually make more than minimum wage, as nobody *wants* to do it).

_CMK

Economics Humor

[jonblaze]

open tomorrow in Milton Keynes, England

Is that next to John Maynard Friedman, England?

ba-dum-dum

Re:Economics Humor

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yeah, just one roundabout (aka 'traffic circle') down. Actually, did I say one? I meant one hundred- almost 6 feet.

Fantastic

[Bombula]

It'll be like when I was a kid again, when movies only cost $1! I hope it catches on in the US too. Then studios will have to go back to counting the number of tickets sold a a meaningful measure of a film's success instead of box office receipts. I've always hated that new movies like Harry Potter and Spiderman are seen as 'more successful' just because they made 10% more money than Star Wars. Star Wars did it when movies cost 1/5 as much!

Re:Fantastic

[KewlPC]

Except that, with this scheme, you would no longer see expensive films like Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Titanic, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, any of The Matrix films, etc.

This is because the studios get their money from ticket sales. The lower the price is on tickets, the less money the studios make. And at $0.33 per ticket, the studios are going to make almost no money at all.

The only possible way this could work is if the studios were like, "Ok. We're charging you (the theater) $X per ticket. If you want to charge more, and keep the difference, fine. But no matter what, we're getting $X per ticket sold." Basically, this would make it similar to retail (where the manufacturer charges a certain, fixed price (wholesale), and the retailer usually doubles that and keeps the difference). But that's not the way it is right now: studios get a percentage of the total ticket sales (usually 90% for the first few weeks and if it's a big movie, then 50% after that), whether that's $0.33 per ticket or $8.50 per ticket.

Re:Fantastic

[Caeldan]

Actually. When doing comparisons of old and new movies, they typically do take inflation into account.

Ha!

[Micro$will]

Yeah, when Bill Gates decides to release the NT source code and license it GNU. Just like the record industry, the movie industry enjoys it's little spot at the top, and it will take a lot more than a few entrepreneurs to make them let go.

The only way to make the MPAA and RIAA listen to customer demands is if there is an all out boycott. No CDs, no singles, no DVDs, no movies, no tapes, no bargain bin, no radio, no downloads, nothing... not one more penny enters their pockets, and not one byte to blame on software piracy. Just like drugs, as long as there is demand, there will be a dealer. Like Nancy said, "Just say NO!"

Scalpers...

[Derg]

am I the only one who sees the myriad of scalping possibilities with this plan? go in, buy a ticket at the cheapest possible price. The movie doesnt start for an hour or whatever, so you leave and come back. That is what I assume they expect for the cheapskates, as they dont have any reason to stay, its no frills.


But if you are enterprising, you just grab a small business card scanner, turn it into a image and duplicate it ... clip and sell for late commers at 10% of the now higher price.. works great for multiple day runs too, come back whenever you want to see it again... whos going to check your ticket? a barcode scanner...

what happens of the person uploads the barcode to the itnernet? Now thousands could get in free.. Imagine the reprocussions for a flick like LOTR:ROTK ... could be tragic... The geek to sheep ratio on that film alone could ruin the film industry.... Heres hoping!! :D

Re:Scalpers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, cause it would just be too hard to have a different barcode on each ticket. A computer small enough to fit into a barcode scanner would have too many problems with anything bigger then a 10 digit numeric barcode.

C'mon, get real.

Re:Scalpers...

[zztzed]

Yes, because obviously the theater would never ever notice thousands of people using the same ticket, nor would they do anything to prevent people that from happening like, say, invalidating a ticket after its first use.

Re:Scalpers...

[zztzed]

"do anything to prevent that from happening", rather.

Really should proofread/edit my comments better before I post them...

Re:Scalpers...

[bagsc]

They don't sell tickets at the theatre.
The lag between a person wanting a scalped ticket, and a scalper having incentive to buy a scalped ticket is exactly long enough to buy the ticket in advance yourself.

Plus, if the company has half an IQ point, they'll not accept two with the same code.

Re:Scalpers...

[Derg]

They do in fact sell tickets at the theater, via kiosks in the lobby. to quote:

Seats have to be booked on the internet, either from home or at one of a half-dozen computers in the lobby of the cinema.

So there :p... I still think my point is valid. Never said it would be practical. Defeating barcode based security wouldnt be that hard. Part of the barcode would have to identify the movie, and part probably the date. they cant segment by location, since you can order tickets from multiple locations. so it becomes a case of buying multiple tickets for several different movies, and if possible, different locations, and analyzing them. I cant really imagine this to be too hard, as they seem to be aiming for simplicity and cheap-ness, and as such, probably would not dedicate a whole lot of energy to creating Un-defeatable tickets.

heres a geeky pipedream... create a barcode generator for your favorite handheld device, based on your analysis from above, and BAM! ... free admit anytime you feel like catchin a picture show... now thats nice... *drool*

Re:Scalpers...

[Dyolf Knip]

Hence the ridiculously low ticket price. Do you want to have the hassle of trying to search for a valid bar code ticket for a movie online, then print and cut out copies for all your friends, hoping that it'll actually work when you get there, all to save yourself an amount of change you would probably not pick up off the ground if the opportunity presented itself? Scalping? Scalp a 33 cent ticket for 36 cents? You spend more than that on chewing gum. If you sold 200 of them every hour you'd rake in a whopping $6/hour, and that doesn't even include printing costs.

This is the lesson the MPAA and RIAA are refusing to learn. People are using P2P because it's free and often more convenient than trotting down to the local store. They must respond by becoming close-to-free and even more convenient. Instead of selling what the customer wants to buy, they are selling only what the executives want sell. And surprise, surprise, when an alternative presents itself, the masses flock to it.

Re:Scalpers...

[Derg]

I agree with your points on the MPAA/RIAA.. however, I am in disagreement with your prices. To quote

Scalp a 33 cent ticket for 36 cents?

But thats where the prices start. If they end at lets say, $8.50, and you are selling them for $5 (I realize I originally said 10% off, but thats really not worth it at these prices, it would result in a ticket of $7.55, and hardly worth the hastle) , and you got it for $0.33, you are making $4.57, not too bad, surely more than the printing costs. Now you sell 200 an hour, your at $914... not too bad for an hours worth of work. As for costs, you have your initial investment in the scanner, comp and printer, lets say thats a thousand dollars and your recurring costs of toner (laser printers = higher quality + more prints/cartridge versus inkjet), and paper and lets say thats $50 a night (3 reams of paper a night and a new toner cartridge once a month). At the end of the month, claiming an average of 4 hours a day of sales, each hour averaging $700, thats $2800 a day, ~15 days a month (weekends, prime movie releases) your talking $42000, not too shabby. You pay back your initial investment in the first night and have enough cash to cover expenses for the rest of the month. The rest is just cream.



Then again, I am probably just completely wrong and I am sure, since this is /., atleast 1 person will correct me.. *shrugs* such is life...

Re:Scalpers...

[Bluesman]

>Part of the barcode would have to identify the movie, and part probably the date.

Not really. The barcode would most likely be a unique primary key with a few random digits that corresponded to a database entry with the theater, time, showing, price, and film.

Just like UPC codes work, the information about the product you're buying isn't actually encoded in the barcode. The barcode is just a unique number. UPC readers query a database that you can even look up here.

Re:Scalpers...

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Milton Keynes, used this service amd know how it works.
When you create an accoutn with easycinema you print out a membership card. When you buy tickets this membership card is allocated a number of entries to the screen. There are no tickets like a regular cinema, just this membership card.
You buy 5 tickets for a particluar showing and the turnstiles let 5 people with Membership Cards matching the one used to purchase the tickets into the film, no more.

FYI the other cinema is 200 meters from this one, and sells weekend and weekday after 5pm tickets for £6.20, weekday before 5pm for £4.70 and Tuesdays (bargain day) @ £3.70.
The maximum price for easyCinema tickets is £5 right before the showing.

Re:Scalpers...

[Dyolf Knip]

The prices you name are an order of magnitude more than what is actually being charged. And I'm kind of confused as to what you think scalping is. Printing out fake tickets is forgery. Scalping is buying real tickets that will quickly becomse scarce and then selling them for a higher price, counting on high demand and low or nonexistant supply to make people willing to pay you your profit margin.

So are we going to be forging tickets? Well, I find it unlikely that you would be able to sell 200 tickets an hour, even at massive megaplexes, for more than a few hours on Friday and Saturday nights (but of course we don't really know how many people are going to show up for these). Really, who's going to bother buying from a scruffy-looking character with tickets that sometimes don't work to save themselves 8 cents? So, at 25 cents each, maybe a thousand a week, tops, nets you $250. Not an inconsiderable sum, but you probably had to spend a good twenty hours doing it. Not what I would call lucrative.

stupid idea

[gfody]

this is a stupid idea.. people could just scalp the cheap early-buy tickets at the door the night of the movie.

also, byop byos?? I avoid edwards cinemas cuz they dont have hot tomales, but no soda? im way too lazy to stop off and get my own soda on the way to the theater i'd rather pay the $2.75 for a medium coke (no I dont care for the 64oz for only a quarter more) im happy to pay the inflated price for snacks and drinks and you should be happy to charge me for it

why do current theaters only fill 20% of the seats? because they're so fucking small! nobody wants to sit in the seat next to some stranger, nobody wants to sit in the seat next to the seat next to some stranger because the seats are so freggin tiny you'll still be sitting too close

same problem the seats are too close together.. nobody wants to sit directly behind or infront of some stranger. and wtf is up with the seats 2 feet away from the screen

and having one line for all the different movies is stupid, you should buy your ticket at the entrance of the theater your movies playing in.. that way you dont get assholes waiting in line then deciding what movie they want to see at the window because they just found out the movie they wanted to see is sold out because the person in front of them wasted all sorts of time trying to decide what movie to see because the movie they wanted to see was sold out

Finally, this is on-topic!

[gpinzone]

1. Sell movie tickets for a loss.
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

Tell me again why people who think the airline industry is a good place to turn a profit have a viable business model here?

Re:Finally, this is on-topic!

[renard]

1. Sell movie tickets for a loss.
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

You may ask: How do we make money selling the tickets at a loss? The answer is simple:

Volume!

(Apologies to SNL)

Re:Finally, this is on-topic!

[jbrw]

RyanAir, a budget airline based in Ireland, and probably easyJet's biggest rival, often gives away tickets. RyanAir will often effectively give tickets away (well, sell them for 1p - I think there's insurance implications if you actually give the tickets away) - it's very very common to get a flighr for around £10 (plus tax). An ex-flatmate used to keep an eye out for the super-discounted tickets from London to northern Italy so she could visit her parents.

RyanAir is making big fat profits despite all of the above...

Re:Finally, this is on-topic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually...

In Europe the low-cost airlines are the only ones making a profit. No unioins, no fat, point to point links, kkep the aircraft in the air the whole time.

Re:Finally, this is on-topic!

[(H)elix1]

1. Sell movie tickets for a loss.
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

Tell me again why people who think the airline industry is a good place to turn a profit have a viable business model here?

2. Sell popcorn and a soda for $10, but to more people since the theater is packed. Now if they let you bring your own snacks, I would wonder about this gig... Damn airlines want $5 for a drink even on international flights these days.

Re:Finally, this is on-topic!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you'll find easyjet has made a profit. And ryanair (Irish based european budget airline) definatley has.

It's more like

1. Sell some tickets at a loss
Sell most at breakeven/slight profit
sell a few at massive profit
2. make everything as efficient as possible, keep staff numbers to a minimum.
3. PROFIT

Off Topic Grammar

[MyHair]

...the myriad Microsoft court cases...

Thank you! I swear to god that's the first time I've seen or heard "myriad" used correctly in months. This week I even saw it misued on the back cover of a book.

Hey, everyone has an irrational pet peeve.

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[ConceptJunkie]

That's OK. I almost gagged when I read this clause:

it shouldn't matter what price they sell on the tickets at for we poor folk?

It's not a Slashdot thing. My wife gets really ticked off at me for pointing out grammatical errors on TV. It's bad enough on commercials and news, but when even Data uses bad grammar you know that there's a crisis.

This morning I just got an error message from Windows stating "The data has not been saved."

Grammar is a lost art.

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[bethanie]

Hence the geekly interest in it, no doubt?

....Bethanie....

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[greenrd]

This morning I just got an error message from Windows stating "The data has not been saved."

What's ungrammatical about that?

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[tuck182]

"Data" is plural. It would be like saying, "The apples has not been eaten."

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[ConceptJunkie]

The singular is "datum".

People have the same problem with "media".

The media are largely ignorant of the proper use of the word "media".

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[Blue Stone]

So, "The data have not been saved," would be right?????

'Cause that just sounds plain wrong.

As far as I'm concerned, data = sheep.

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

Once again, the fools of slashdot speak...

Definition and usage of the word "data"

Read up.. you might learn something.

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[ConceptJunkie]

In practice, "data" == "sheep", but technically the word is plural, so "data" == "mice". Yeah, it sounds funny, but so did using "fewer" instead of "less" to me when I realized I was doing it wrong.

e.g., "10 Items or Fewer"

Around me wafted the concerti from a million oxen, seraphim and octopi, as I engraved a single graffito on the wall, "The media are wrong."

Or something.

Rick

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

Your right, it is plain wrong in today's american english.

At minimum, he is wrong in american english. I have no idea how the british do things. The dictinary says you can use data as plural or singular form with the same spelling. The parent doesn't know what he is talking about.

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[arkanes]

I'm not sure which fools you're referring to, but just in case you're supporting the pedantic (and incorrect) parent:

From your source:
pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

Re:Off Topic Grammar

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

That is why I called him a fool... :)

the best way to make money

[miyako]

...would be to not only have cheap tickets

but to sell those super duper jumbo sodas really cheap
...and then charge $20 to use the bathroom

seriously the only time you ever have to pee worse than when you wake up in the morning is right after sitting through a movie in the theatre, or is this just me?

Re:the best way to make money

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say it's even worse after a long night of tempestual sex, but obviously (consider where I'm posting), I wouldn't know a thing about that.

*sigh*

Re:the best way to make money

[rabidcow]

The floors are filthy enough as it is.

Re:Excuse me (distribution in the uk)

[mikeb]

Though I'm not an expert on the film business I recollect just a few months back seeing a section on 'The Money Program' on BBC about the film distribution industry in Britain.

From what I remember one US-based distributor (Vista? or a name something like that) controls something like 80% of film distribution in Europe. Even the films that are locally financed in the UK have to use them for distribution as they have a stanglehold on the cinemas.

That will be why Easy are talking about legal action - it IS effectively a monopoly on supply.

Show films from independent filmmakers

[FattMattP]

They should show some films from independent filmmakers. There are a lot of good films out there and few of them originate in Hollywood.

Price fixing?

[msimm]

If the MPAA won't let him sell tickets at a fair price (his price), wouldn't that be price fixing?

That could make for and interesting news story.

Re:Price fixing?

[beebware]

I've got a feeling the "real reason" behind all this is that the distributing authority will charge around £10,000 a week for the first week of Reloaded and EasyCinema just can't afford it at 0.20p per ticket.

Off Topic Grammar Again

[MyHair]

...the myriad of scalping possibilities...

Damn! Well, it was nice while it lasted. Too bad it was only a few minutes and a few Slashdot posts.

Re:Off Topic Grammar Again

[rpresser]

Entry for Myriad:

adj.
1. Constituting a very large, indefinite number; innumerable: the myriad fish in the ocean.
2. Composed of numerous diverse elements or facets: the myriad life of the metropolis.

n.
1. A vast number: the myriads of bees in the hive.
2. Archaic. Ten thousand.

Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mYrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mYrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mYrias was used only in poetry.

You've seen it as a noun, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is legal grammer.

You could just as easily say the "myriad of Microsoft court cases" as you could "the myriad Microsoft court cases," though the latter case denotes variety while the former denotes a large quantity.

Look it up.

Re:You've seen it as a noun, perhaps?

[MyHair]

I stand corrected. Now I feel stupid.

Where's the "delete post" button?

Oh well, I'm used to feeling stupid. At least I'm not the only one.

From your link:

Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek.

Re:You've seen it as a noun, perhaps?

[Moofie]

I know how you feel. I resent the hell out of the contention that using the construction " begs the question that " is correct employment of the phrase.

It may be well accepted, but it's still WRONG.

: )

I might be a grammar nazi, but I only have one jackboot. And it's not really spiky. Can't find the other one. Stupid dog.

Pot, meet Kettle

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I can argue or would even try to defend the US governments 'elastic' concepts of borders, but the Aussie government really doesn't to much help in squelching fair use or personal freedoms these days.

so...

[supernova87a]

let me get this straight. They're going to follow the model of the airlines. Does that mean they'll charge less for movies that suck ass?

I Stand Corrected

[MyHair]

An anonymous poster referred me to dictionary.com which explains "myriad" can be used as either a noun or adjective, but during the 19th centruy many came to believe the adjective was the only correct use. I confirmed this with m-w.com .

Now I've posted 4 useless posts in a few minutes...feel free to mod me into oblivion.

Plus now I need to find a new irrational pet peeve.

Airline business model?

[Elentar]

So, if they're following the airline business model, does that mean that you can watch the movie for free, but you have to buy a ticket in order to listen to it too?

-Elentar

Re:Airline business model?

[orkysoft]

Just go to a movie with subtitles, or a silent movie ;-)

Re:Airline business model?

[wik]

Seeing the current state of the airlines, they're all set to go right out
of
business. Somehow I question this business model. :)

Now I'm not complaining at much about my $240 ticket from Pittsburgh to San Diego, except that now it's under $200. How do they expect to stay in business, again?

Re:Airline business model?

[jez9999]

Um... except the airlines you've just mentioned are the standard airlines, not the budget ones; the ones that are being driven out of business.

Re:Airline business model?

[wik]

The ones I mentioned are all either in bankrupcy or heading quickly towards bankrupcy court, as we speak. Their ticket pricing is downright nutty.

The only major airline that's doing well right now is Southwest, and they keep it simple. If anyone from Southwest is reading, please add beautiful, sunny Pittsburgh to your routes! :-)

Three reasons theaters are empty...

[Anonymous Coward]

The theaters are empty because of three reasons:

1) There are too many assholes who bring their babies to the theater and/or talk too much and/or don't turn off their cell phones and/or kick the back of your seat and/or are just generally impolite to the rest of the audience.

EVERY time I go to the theater I experience one or all of those. And don't get me started about the time the people two seats over pulled a Bill and Monica in a packed theater.

2) Hollywood produces a lot of crap that isn't worth the price of the ticket.

and...

3) The home entertainment system. Why the hell would I pay $9.00/person to see a movie while being annoyed at people mentioned previously or feeling ripped off afterwards?

I can go to the local rental store, pick up a movie and cozy up with my girl, some beer, popcorn and my surround-sound system for less than the price of those two theater tickets!

it's not about price....

[maxpublic]

The boys presenting this scheme have a good, solid idea which has been used to before by some other industries (e.g., the airlines). Fact is, actual attendance is dismally low compared to seating when you adjust for all times, around 1/5 of the theater seats available. Decreasing price results in increasing attendance; Econ 101 tells you that in many cases the improved attendance will actually result in *more* profits, not less. That is:

Fill 20 seats at $7 each = $140
Fill 50 seats at $4 each = $200
Fill 100 seats at $2.50 each = $250

And so on.

But the MPAA isn't interested in the basics of the free market. What they're interested in is control, pure and simple - and price fixing is one very obvious, and very effective, method of maintaining control. If you can no longer enforce price fixing then you lose one of your more important tools for controlling not only the theaters that run your movies, but also of moviegoers.

How's that? It's really very, very simple: the higher the price the less movies the consumer can afford. Because the consumer can only see x number of movies, advertising can be used to 'herd' the consumer into spending his limited movie income on movies the MPAA chooses to push. The higher the price, the more limited the options, the more likely the consumer will spend his money on something being heavily promoted by the MPAA.

Lower the price and the consumer can now make more movie choices. The consumer, blast his heathen soul, might decide to use some of this disposable income to see movies *not* promoted by the MPAA - perhaps smaller, independent films. The consumer, that communist scumbag, might actually begin to believe that he has a more options - he might even take some of that 'movie money' and spend it on something else! After all, if all he wants to see are two films a month, and they're now half the price that they were, he might spend the other half of the money on something radical, like a book.

Bad, bad consumer!

In any event, remember that the MPAA is at the top of the heap. Like any organization that's king of the hill, change is a threat to the status quo and one that must be quashed regardless of the possible upside. To the invested, change is evil and must be prevented at all costs.

This particular change takes some power out of the hands of the MPAA and puts it into the hands of the consumer. Despite the fact that it would most likely increase overall profits, the loss of power is simply unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. Price-fixing *must* be maintained.

For organizations like the RIAA, the MPAA, or monopolies like Microsoft, profit takes a big back seat to power. The free market is of no interest whatsoever to these folks; in fact, the less free, the better.

Max

Re:it's not about price....

[Esion Modnar]

For organizations like the RIAA, the MPAA, or monopolies like Microsoft, profit takes a big back seat to power. The free market is of no interest whatsoever to these folks; in fact, the less free, the better.

They'd stab democracy in the back if it served their needs. And I'm not sure they haven't already...

Wish upon them bitter days and bitter defeat.

Re:it's not about price....

[dirk]

While your idea may work in some cases, simple logic says it doesn't apply hear. The simple facts are 90% (I'm estimating here) of the movies released are released by MPAA members. Of these movies, probably 50% break even or make money (while in the theatre). IF more people were seeing more movies, the majoprity of the movies they would see are the owns from MPAA members that aren't making money. They may go and see an independant film, but more likely they will see the latest Eddie Murphy flop, simply because it is more acccessible, and they remember Beverly Hills Cop and that was funny.

Independent movies are small not because they are outside the MPAA, but because most people have no interest in them. They are made for niche market people, and the makers realize most people would not have an interest in the movie (because, unfortunately, most people are too busy seeing the latest Jim Carey crapfest or watching the Matrix Reloaded SFX fest instead of seeing movies with plots and characters).

Re:it's not about price....

[Anonymous Coward]

Make

For organizations like the RIAA, the MPAA, or monopolies like Microsoft, profit takes a big back seat to power. The free market is of no interest whatsoever to these folks; in fact, the less free, the better.

your .sig and watch the karma roll in

Re:it's not about price....

[protohiro1]

As much as I agree with you economic analysis, I think you are giving these studio people too much credit. The fact is 90% of them are morons. They got there by kissing the right asses. They get promoted for their ass kissing skills, and then if they make one bad move they get fired. Everyone is so TERRIFIED of being fired they are unwilling to take any risks. Changing the pricing scheme would be taking a risk. Putting out a different kind of movie would be taking a risk.

Multiplex history

[toxcspdrmn]

Milton Keynes was the first place in Britain to build a multiplex cinema.. The Point opened in 1985, but (I have heard) is having to close as it is has been unable to compete against the new Xscape cinema/indoor ski/health centre.

Incidentally, Milton Keynes is also home to probably the world's only herd of concrete cows.

Re:Multiplex history

[jasoncart]

That Xscape place. Does it really have this sports shop called Sweatshop?

Is that a joke or are they just being honest about where their Nike goods come from?

Re:Multiplex history

[toxcspdrmn]

I don't know - they opened Xscape just after I left Milton Keynes for Edinburgh to research my PhD.It's not a bad place to live but they weren't very hot on irony.

After all there are not many places that could, with a straight face, have allowed Cliff Richard to rollerskate around the shopping mall making the Wired for Sound video (google cache as the original page seems to have gone).

Of more interest to the Slashdot crowd is probably the nearby Bletchley Park of WWII Station X codebreaking fame. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

Re:Multiplex history

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Point" *is* the cinema thats being turned into this new EasyCinema!!

thats whats beautifully ironic... the first
multiplex cinema - which represented the new
way of seeing movies, is *once again* becoming the
new way of seeing movies! :-)

Re:Multiplex history

[toxcspdrmn]

So it is. How poetic.

Maybe I should try reading the article in future. :-)

Re:Multiplex history

[Anonymous Coward]

The Point did close down recently, this is the cinema that Easy has purchased.

Stelios has been on the local news a lot saying that they have been sold out for all screens. They also mentioned that the police were called to the nearby Xscape building when Stelios and a few others went over to watch the Matrix (security kicked him out). I assume they were all wearing the bright orange EasyCinema shirts I've seen about.

I for one will be going if they can manage to get some more recent films.

Craig
Milton Keynes resident.

Re:Multiplex history

[EddWo]

This new easycinema is in The Point. They have stripped out all the refreshment stalls and painted the exterior bright orange.

http://www.easygroup.co.uk/easyCinema/map.html

Re:Multiplex history

[jez9999]

The Point has been taken over by EasyCinema, and utterly ruined (in my opinion) because they have made it look hideous, with garish white-on-orange colors all over it, and they've removed the refreshments too.

It's a shame. As a regular The Point visitor, I remember when I was a kid, going up to the point at night and seeing it all lit up, it was really magical. I'll not be going to the new econoCinema... just lost some of its magic. I will now go to the new Cineworld nearby.

Premium Cinema in Framingham, MA

[psxndc]

Same sort of deal: cushy seats, free popcorn and soda, you have to be 21 to get in, but each ticket costs about $18. I'd say totally worth it except that my car window got smashed in their parking lot during the X2 opening night.

To be fair, they share the lot with the Multiplex that is part of the same building, but when I asked managment "Where are the cameras for the parking lot?", they said "The landlord won't allow them." I called the landlord and they said "What? They can have cameras if they want. It's in their land lease". Kinda soured me on the whole joint.

psxndc

Re:Premium Cinema in Framingham, MA

[CompVisGuy]

I won free tickets to a preview screening of "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" for myself and several friends at a new cinema in Salford, near Manchester, UK. The screening took place in their "first-class" screen.

It had Lazy-Boy type seats, "steward/stewardess" call button, alcoholic drinks etc.

But, I wouldn't actually *pay* the premium to see a film in such a screen. I like the atmosphere of a larger screen, I like having a large screen. I like it when you can feel the audience rooting for the hero, or laughing like crazy to a great comedy, or groaning at the shitty script and dodgy CGI in the Star Wars prequels.

Increasingly, though, the etiquette of other cinema-goers is poor: chatting on their mobile phones, to each other, smoking etc. etc. I can see that before long, I'll be willing to pay a premium to see films in a nicer atmosphere.

I hope they keep the trailers, though.

Here's why the MPAA is not a monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? The MPAA is NOT in the business of making and distributing movies. The have never made a single commercial film in their entire existence. The MPAA is an organization of movie studios with the aim of promoting their interests. Movie studios are the ones who are in this business, and there a lot of them. More than one. Really. When's the last time you saw a movie that was brought to you by the MPAA? This is like saying the OpenGL consortium has a monopoly on OpenGL business.

Once again, Slashdot shows it's extreme ignorance about subjects not related to computers.

http://www.mpaa.org/about/

Re:Here's why the MPAA is not a monopoly.

[MulluskO]

More like a cartel, then.

Re:Here's why the MPAA is not a monopoly.

[SeXy_Red]

Although a little angry, this AC does have a point. The MPAA is the Motion Picture ASSOSIATION of America, notice the key word association. Being an association, not a company, they can't be a monopoly as the parent post so rudely stated.

Once again, Slashdot shows it's extreme ignorance about subjects not related to computers.

Note to the parent AC: Don't blame slashdot for the failing of some of there readers.

Re:Here's why the MPAA is not a monopoly.

[91degrees]

Yep. More people ought to learn that word.

Re:Here's why the MPAA is not a monopoly.

[dubious9]

Or keiretsu. Maybe even more fitting, though not english.

Re:Here's why the MPAA is not a monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame slashdot for the failing of some of there readers.

Don't blame Slashdot for the failings of some of its readers.

Comfy chairs?

[davesag]

I just hope that the seats they have in these easy cinemas are more comfortable than the seats in EastJet planes. If you've ever flow EasyJet you'll know that they have the most horribly uncomfortable seats. So much so I'll not fly them again. Also to fly easyjet you have to get both a train and a bus from central london all the way out to luton - adds a heap to the ticket price. then there is no allocated seating so you just have to scramble for a seat, with entry order based on the order you arrive at the airport and check in. they often delay and cancel flights at the very last minute because there are not enough seats filled. imagine this with cinema - you turn up but they don't start the show until the seats are 90% sold. so an 8:30 screening will almost always start at 9:30 or later. in the meantime you'll be watching ads. and sure they won't sell popcorn but bet your sweet ass there will be soft drink vending machines at £2 per can - or £2.50 for a bottle of water.

nah sorry i'm all for cheaper ticket prices - but hell, go to the prince charles cinema in soho if you want cheap prices. most films there are only £2 per screening, and you can buy tickets at the box office - no need to go out and buy a printer just so you can print out your internet issued bar code.

bollocks to that.

also, i am in bulgaria right now and paid a grand BLV5 (= approx £1.80) to see the matrix reloaded, in english with bulgarian subtitles, in a pretty decent cinema. in the UK the cinemas in leicester square charge around £10 = £12 per ticket last time i looked, and you have been able to buy them online too for years. only you don't have to print out a stupid bar code, you just turn up, stick your credit card in the slot and it spits out your tickets. incidentally this is how BAs online flight tickets work and it rocks. you buy your tickets online and just turn up to the airport, stick your card in the slot and use the touch screen to choose your seats, answer the basic security questions and it spits out your boarding passes. then you just hand over your bags at a special desk reserved for e-ticket holders and bingo you are off. takes less than 5 minutes usually.

all easycinema will do it force real cinemas to cut costs and that's a good thing for consumers. but only kids or the homeless would put up with their special brand of easyservice. on given this willl be a staff-free cinema i expect the kids and the homeless will get on just fine - trading glue and drugs for wood alcohol</opinion>

Re:Comfy chairs?

[MartinB]

I just hope that the seats they have in these easy cinemas are more comfortable than the seats in EastJet planes. If you've ever flow EasyJet you'll know that they have the most horribly uncomfortable seats.

I have, and have also flown on pretty much every shorthaul airline flying in UK airspace. Easyjet fly 737-700s, the same as BA and BMI, and the seats are generally standard seats (although BA & BMI do some customised improvements for business class). Where you will find differences is in seat pitch (ie legroom) and the amount of wear that the seat has endured. Doing very well in filling capacity is naturally going to have an impact on the number of bums that have sat on each seat...

Also to fly easyjet you have to get both a train and a bus from central london all the way out to luton - adds a heap to the ticket price.

Compared to the free transfer to Stansted, Gatwick, Heathrow and City? (not) With the exception of City, they're all miles out. The Thameslink up to Luton is fast and not too expensive (compare: Heathrow or Gatwick express). The bus is a wee shuttle bus from the off-airport station. It takes 5 mins and it's free.

then there is no allocated seating so you just have to scramble for a seat, with entry order based on the order you arrive at the airport and check in.

You want allocated seating? Fly BA and pay for the priviledge. Or show up in time. Or remember that compared to BMI/BA etc, few of EJ's passengers are regular flyers, so don't know which seats are the better seats.

they often delay and cancel flights at the very last minute because there are not enough seats filled.

No, they can't do this. They can't voluntarily delay because then they'd lose slots (actually, they're under a lot of timetable pressure to get the planes turned round in much less than traditional timeframes), and if your aircraft is needed in Luton to take a plane full to Barcelona, there's damn all use in it being still in Glasgow because they haven't sold enough seats. Scheduling airlines is a complex business, which is why bad weather or strike action in one location can screw the entire network for quite a long time.

BA's eTicketing is very smart, though, and they don't arse about with the 'You must have govt issued photo id to get on a domestic flight' crap. Although this didn't stop someone making it all the way through Luton security right onto the plane without so much as a ticket last week (fortunately, EJ's on-plane headcount didn't tally so they found him/her before takeoff).

Re:Comfy chairs?

[davesag]

I'm just speaking from my own experience here but the seats in the EJ planes are really uncomfortable. It's not a question of legroom, there is some metal bar or something that runs across the thin cusion that puts insane pressure on my ass, such that by the time I get off the plane I am in considerable discomfort. It's this reason - and it's happened every time I've flown EJ, that I won't fly them again.

Getting out to LHR or Gatwick from central london is like a £3.50 tube ride, or if you want you can check in at paddington, leave your luggage there and get the admittadly expensive heathrow express. Depending on how much luggage I have and the time of my flight its worth it though just for the extra hour's sleep you can get in the morning.

i do want allocated seating. i fly at least twice per month and know damn well which seats in which planes will give me the best leg-room/laptop tray space. cool that a 15" tibook fits perfectly into the slots of an airbus seat btw.

BA's prices are often the same or less than EJ for trips between amsterdam and london. especially if you book early. And BA let you check in online and choose your seats etc 12 hrs before your flight. I can't speak for EJ's other destinations but I know for the amsterdam to london run BA can't be beat.

I have been delayed by an hour almost every time I have tried to fly easyjet. All airlines cancel flights - i've had it happen - occasionally and suffer delays due to weather and whatnot, but this has happened very rarely with BA in my experience. I have known of friends whose EJs flights have been cancelled for no reason they can work out other than insufficient bookings.

Re:Comfy chairs?

[Anonymous Coward]

move to the north west and quit winging then again dont stay in bulgaria. Just because you live in londont doesnt mean prices are the same all across the UK here in Manchester we get a nice big comfy seat for £2.50 and they serve popcorn and all the usual junk.

Re:Comfy chairs?

[Anonymous Coward]

you do know that EJ flies to Amsterdam from Gatwick, don't you???

Re:Comfy chairs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do alot of long-haul flying. 12 hour flights.

I also use easyjet for local european flights, and on a one or two hour flight, I could STAND IN THE CARGO AREA.

I pity you if you notice the fact that the seats are "uncomfortable", they seem like regular seats to me, very dirty regular seats mind you. The kind you find on a train.

Also, when I am paying a return price for 2 people of 35 pounds to Trieste, Brussels, Maastricht, Friedrichshafen, I don't expect to have my seats allocated!

Put me in the cargo hold and her in the luggage rack..These are crazy prices!

The MPAA is NOT a studio!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you people insist on spreading this Fucked Up Disinformation about the MPAA being a movie making and distribution studio? IT ISN'T! It is an association who's aim is to promote the interest of it's members. There are no scripts being looked at right now in the MPAA's main headquarters.

You guys need to stick to computer topics.

Re:The MPAA is NOT a studio!

[Anonymous Coward]

er .. nobody on this thread said that it was a studio, dumb-ass.

Re:Excuse me (distribution in the uk)

[KewlPC]

That's Buena Vista. Owned by everyone's other favorite Evil Empire, Disney.

But the MPA and the MPAA have nothing to do with distribution.

It's doubtful that they'd be ruled a monopoly, since Buena Vista (via their parent corporation, Disney), only makes a handful of films. The rest, and the conditions under which they can be distributed, are determined by the company that actually makes the film.

Re:Multiplex history - concrete cows

[MartinB]

Milton Keynes is also home to probably the world's only herd of concrete cows. [my emphasis]

Apart, that is, from:

• San Antonio, TX
• Auckland, New Zealand
• Atlanta, Georgia
• Ireland
• West Hartford, Connecticut
• Brussels, Belgium
• Isle of Man
• New York City
• Stamford, Connecticut
• London, England
• Sydney, Australia
• West Orange, New Jersey
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Houston, Texas
• Portland, Oregon

Also (added here because this long an unordered list in a submission kept failing): Ventspils, Latvia and Las Vegas, NV

Seats for free

[klang]

If they are going to run theatres as they do the airline company, it doesn't matter if the seats are cheap. Cheap is still better than Zero, which is exactly what the cinema industry seems to get on 80% of their seats. The actual, base line, cost of showing a movie, or flying a plane remains the same no matter the number of occupied seats .. THAT's why this will work.

Don't think that EVERY seat is going for 20p .. some will, but certainly not all!

/klang

Re:Seats for free

[SN74S181]

Just remember that what's being proposed here is that the theatre pay a flat fee for each playing. That means that for less popular films, there will be ten people in the theatre all splitting the same fees to the movie producer, instead of one hundred at the more popular film. That means it will be more expensive for more obscure, less mass-market films. It means many films won't get shown at all, because it's too risky for a theatre operator to pay big dollars to play a flat-fee to run a movie to a near-empty house.

What this guy is trying to do is 'WalMart' the movie business. If it doesn't have a high volume national market, it doesn't make it into a WalMart. Small hardware stores are HURT by WalMarts, but small hardware stores carry a much, much wider line of products, which become unavailable if WalMart drives them out of business.

Re:Seats for free

[klang]

What this guy has found out is, that selling a seat in an out of the way cinema is just the same as selling a seat in a plane going to an out of the way airport.

That's what the airline discount companies (BIG in Europe) are doing. They are generally not going to the big traditional airfields, but smaller out of the way fields. Then they make sure that every plane is fully booked. .. what the hell, a shopping weekend in London will run you 20£ or less, so you'll go.

The same concept applies to the Cinema Business.
Selling 25% at 8 equals selling 100% at 2. So the Distributor needs his cut from that instead of the number of sold tickets. Asuming that the average price is higher than 2 units, the gross earning will be higher.

It's a different business model. Every cinema can folow that or the traditional one .. hell, they could even run the model on monday or tuesday shows with the least (traditional) customers.

WalMart is just a BIG store, right? Large scale production has it's advantages. But in production there are other parameters to play with. Cutting down costs and selling ALL the goods are just some of them.

/klang

Re:Seats for free

[SN74S181]

This is topic drift, but WalMart isn't about selling ALL the goods. WalMart is about only selling goods that move fast and in large volume.

When I go into the old fashioned hardware store about a half mile from here, I can ask about a piece of pipe, or a bolt, or a hand tool that they've had in stock for years, because it's something that they don't sell a lot of, and it'll be there on a back shelf. At a WalMart if it doesn't 'move' in a matter of weeks or months it's shoved onto the clearance shelf and gone, and never re-ordered.

I don't choose to live in a world where I can only get a thing if it's popular and a mass-market item. But when places like WalMart grab all the volume business, my local Hardware Store ends up only selling the specialty items, and they can't sustain a business that way forever.

To bring it back on-topic, the same phenomenon occurs when a big Cinema Operator comes in the way this business proposes. They rent the movie at a price they can only justfy if they can be assured of a near-full house of viewers, that or they raise the price. And the revenue risk is in even considering screening films that they won't get a full house for, because they're gonna pay the big upfront rental even if nobody shows up and/or refuses to pay a lot more due to being one of the few people interested in the film.

DivX vs. easyCinema

[klang]

Actually, I would say that this easyCinema idea can be used to battle DivX versions of movies .. I mean, would you bother to download a crappy version of a movie you could go see for next to nothing?

/klang

trading exchange

[rapiddescent]

Stelios uses some rather cool software to sell seats on airlines, internetcafe seats. If you book well in advance for a movie for a tuesday afternoon - you'll get it for pennies. It's not unheard of for people to do shorthaul air travel in the UK for less than 5 pounds (about 8 US dollars). If you book lastminute for a popular timeslot, i.e. friday night, then there's a good chance that the price will be closer to 'normal' prices. all it is a basic trading exchange - as an event/flight/film gets more popular the price goes up. Stelios has been really successful - he knows that even though 40% of the audience will be paying 20% of 'normal' ticket prices, others will have paid more AND he'll have 80% full cinemas. The average yield for the flight/movie whatever is never published, but I imagine it is higher than selling 20% of your seats at full price. He is the son of a greek shipping magnate - and 'borrowed' a couple of million off his father to start the airline in the nineties and is now a very wealthy man in his own right. I think the trick is to buy film seats WELL in advance spread over a couple of days and then choose which viewing to go to nearer the time and tout the tickets at the door - after all, you can't do that with airline seats because they are named. rd

UE Laws (Rome Treaty ?)

[dago]

Made a quick look troughout the comments and didn't find any reference, but common laws within the EU (was it Rome treaty), imposes that you can't refuse to sell something to someone if you are selling it to other peoples. No matter which countries you are in...

So normally, he can easily force the distributors to sell him some movies ...

of course IANAL, but that's one of the reason why things here (CH) are always more expensive then everywhere around.

Re:UE Laws (Rome Treaty ?)

[pommiekiwifruit]

Surely the movies are not sold, they are licensed. And that is what the content providers want to propogate through other industries (e.g. software) - if people rent software/videos/music instead of buying it they might have a better revenue stream.

Re:UE Laws (Rome Treaty ?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Use the country name, not the code.

Is it too difficult to say svitserlaand, justin?

I'm sure that you aren't going to see the queen in GB are you?

Tickets are only $8.50 where you live

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky bastard, they're $9 or $10 here.

Re:Tickets are only $8.50 where you live

[KewlPC]

In New York, ticket prices are (at least) $10.

Here in Phoenix, Arizona, tickets cost something like $8.50.

Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

All the movies theaters here are $10 except the cheap ones which are *only* $9. I hate the fucking SF bay area.

They own the theaters too

[yy1]

Sony Theaters owns Loews Theaters for instance, I believe many of the major theater chains are also owned by the same corporations as the companies that make the movies, and if all the people go to see movies somewhere else they will lose their control over distribution, and customers from ther higher profit movies.

For some reaason however, I think any change to the current movie system in place is fought by "Hollywood", maybe they are still pissed about television.

Re:They own the theaters too

[KewlPC]

I don't know how it is in the UK, but in America that isn't allowed.

It used to be that all the major studios owned a theater chain, but after people realized that doing so bordered on having a monopoly, the gov't forced the studios to spin off their theater chains.

Which resulted in the National Association of Theater Owners, and they're constantly arguing with the MPAA member studios over something.

only on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

can an article conjecture rediculous claims based on a set of evidence that has absolutely nothing to do with each principle laid upon therein.
Don't you just love it?

A miscalculation, I think

[j-b0y]

I think the easy* people have midjudged what people want from a cinema experience.

easyJet works because, for the large majority of people (i.e. everybody who has been on a plane at least once before and aren't in >= Business Class), flights are an enormous pain in the ass and only serve as a means to an end (get to where they want to go). Their pricing model is reasonably transparent and you know what you're getting in terms of service (not a lot).

Whereas the traditional carriers have hideously arcane and obscure pricing models and clearly are charing way over the odds for flights. The cats out of the bag on that one.

Transpose this to the cinema industry and you find that it doesn't work. People *like* the cinema experience; the upturn in cinema attendance after the collapse in the late 80s (at least in the UK) was due in part to the far higher quality of cinema experience (pleasant environment, better seats etc etc). Going to the cinema is not just a means to an end, it's an end in itself.

In any case, 'going to the cinema' is right up there in the top 5% of 'impulse activities'. No one is going to book 10 days in advance for a film. Personally speaking, I can seldom decide which film I'm going to see until 10 minutes before it starts. :)

Re:A miscalculation, I think

[fuzzybunny]

Good point. However, you're missing something Important: "Sleazyjet", their car rental firm, and their internet cafes don't just manage to get the job done just fine, they also manage to provide a reasonably clean and functioning environment (the seats work, there's no gum on the floor, etc.)

The main reason they're cheap is the 'no frills' side of their business--that's what I would call a passive inconvenience (as in, it doesn't pop up and bug you until you actually demand free snacks on the plane.) The only real nuisance is that they pick the cheapest docking slots at the cheapest, out-of-the-way airports.

Now if you consider that the _really_ big multiplex cinemas are generally a ways out of town anyway (at least in the USA--here in Switzerland you don't get often get such huge theaters that you couldn't fit them in a city somewhere), you see that they are geared towards mass-processing of customers anyway, that you have to pay for all the add-ons (popcorn, whatnot), and that as long as the place is clean and functional (something your PFY minimum-wage ushers take care of anyway) you have a good start.

Your only major investments are good sound and projection systems. You get economies of scale from those--getting good sound effects to 1000 people isn't going to be that much more effort than getting them to 500 people.

Lastly, I don't know about the UK/Germany/France, but here (Zurich) you do need to book at least 1-2 days in advance if you want any chance of getting a semi-decent seat for any major movie on a weekend. People are more than happy to fork over the ~$10 or more for that, as the movie houses are usually full up for major releases.

Frankly, I could see this niche fitting Stelios' business model just fine, if they can get around the RIAA's restraint of trade practices (as that is pretty blatantly what uniform retail pricing is.)

Re:A miscalculation, I think

[Bluesman]

>No one is going to book 10 days in advance for a film.

Hold on there, boss. You're posting to a crowd who's planning on camping out at least twice that long to get the first ticket to the next Star Wars flick.

Re:A miscalculation, I think

[Anonymous Coward]

I think many people would agree with the 'impulse factor', but they seem to have taken that into account by having a bunch of computers in the cinema to book from apparently.

What's more worrying is that it almost seems as if they're going to have one person to run the entire cinema (and for only £14k)! :)

Reminds me of easyInternetCafe. Last time I went to the one here, part of the space inside had been sold off to a coffee shop and there were no employees anymore on the internet cafe side of things. Just one security guard from an outside company.

easyGroup really seem to be quite struggling in some areas. Including their airline, where the much cheaper Ryanair seem to be beating them at the moment.

We'll just have to see how the cinema venture goes... Stelios hasn't been too luck in the courts lately...

Re:A miscalculation, I think

[Anonymous Coward]

speak for yourself dicklick. "people" includes more than you and your cocksucking friends. stfu stfu stfu and stop speaking for others, you asshat.

Re:A miscalculation, I think

[Anonymous Coward]

Well thanks for sharing a bunch of insults with us all, as opposed to actually sharing your (or you and your cocksucking friends) opinion on the subject.

Dicklick indeed.

Down with Hollywood! They suck anyway!

[Anonymous Coward]

Vast majority of Hollywood movies suck anyway.
They are jsut heavily advertised, action-packed,
stupid mindless flicks.

I prefer foreign movies anyway ...

Misiek

No Popcorn! Hurrayy!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate all this pop-corn stink and noises during
movies.

Any movie-theater around that guarantees me
no popcorn gets my buisness ...

Milton Keynes?

[aaribaud]

Of all places, they chose Good Omens' Milton Keynes?

Actual cost of movie going in UK...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Leicester Square (London's movie-going heartland) cinema : £10.50 per person.

Local (London suburb) cinema : £6.50 per person.

Multiply these figures by 1.5 to get rough US dollar prices. Basically, that's over $15 or $10 to see a movie in the evening on first run. Matinee prices are available, but normally only for the first showing of the day, and even then only at a discount of around £2-3 per ticket.

Yeah, a complete rip-off but what we have to pay over here.

Re:Actual cost of movie going in UK...

[los furtive]

Five years ago in downtown Montreal (Canada) there used to be five different cinemas, with prices ranging from $8.00 CAD to $2.50 CAD (the lower price was for movies just about to come out on video).

Now there are only 2 theatres (new ones that didn't exist back then, the others, all shut down), and the price for a ticket is somewhere between $11.00 CAD and $13.00 CAD.

I used to go and see between one and two movies a week five years ago, now I'll see one movie every month or two, at best.

I undertand that in England $13.00 CAD is only 5.75 GBP, but over here that type of price is plain extortion. I wish easyCinema the same success as their airline venture.

Re:Actual cost of movie going in UK...

[Strolls]

> Leicester Square (London's movie-going heartland)cinema : £10.50 per person.
> Local (London suburb) cinema : £6.50 per person.

Erm... but also:

Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Place: £2.50 per person.
UCI Milton Keynes ("The Point", before it was EasyCinema): about £4

Ok, this is rip-off Britain, but it doesn't cost EVERYONE more than a fiver a ticket. Besides which, cinema chains make almost no money on ticket sales. Ok, that might be Hollywood's fault, but to most cinemas the purpose of the films is just to get bums on seats: they make their profit selling buckets of popcorn & flavored carbonated water to idiots at massive mark-up.

Stroller.

Retail Price Maintenance

[NigelJohnstone]

Retail Price Maintenance is not legal in the UK, (except Books and some drugs).

You can't refuse to sell through easyCinema just because they want to sell it on at a lower price.

Re:Retail Price Maintenance

[nagora]

except Books and some drugs

Book price maintenance has gone now too; hence everything in Waterstone's top 50 has "£x off" stickers. Pity it's still a crap bookshop.

TWW

Re:Multiplex history - concrete cows

[toxcspdrmn]

I stand corrected.:-)

But I think the ones at Milton Keynes may have been the prototype (again, I could be wrong) and they are certainly the ones that bear least resemblance to actual cows, albeit they are painted black and white to emphasise their cowness, rather than shocking pink like the one I just saw on the Cow Parade site.

Re:Multiplex history - concrete cows

[TheMidget]

You forgot:

• Zurich (Switzerland)
• Chicago
• Luxembourg

The exhibition took place in 2001, but many of the cows still exist today (they were merely moved to different places, where they are still publically visible).

Re:Actual cost of movie going in Australia.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sydney A$13.50
Multiply by 0.69 or $US9.31
Concessions are A$9.50 once a week on Tuesdays.

Refusal to supply/Price maintenance by companies is a criminal offence, rarely enforced. Cinemas here choose to go broke rather than rock the boat or squeal to the regulators.
Unlike the USA, the candy bars do not generate 50% of profits, and we do not ladle hot melted butter over the popcorn.
Least the icecream is BSE free.

Re:Multiplex history - concrete cows

[Anonymous Coward]

no, you were correct. Milton Keynes has concrete cows. those other cows are bronze statues
that are relocatable etc

Doesn't it seem odd...

[Mossfoot]

about how Hollywood is complaining about losing profits due to file sharing programs... yet the reason they are told they are losing profits is because of the high prices. Then along comes someone telling them they can get those prices down, while Hollywood get the same price for showing it, and they thumb their nose at it?

Something doesn't add up.

right pricing

[romit_icarus]

low pricing or

"right pricing"?

easyEverything? crappyService.

[DoorFrame]

I was in England for about six months, and when I first got there I used easyEverything (the internet cafe-esque place run by the same people as this multiplex). They had a similar philosophy, if there were less people using the connection, you would get more computer time for your money. The store was 24 hours so if you stopped by at 1am you could stay most of the night for very little money.

Now, that was when I first got there.

By the time I had left, they very clearly were losing money. Everything changed. Suddenly there wasn't any staff around to sell tickets, they only had machines and nobody would make change for you. The prices had gone up and the connection speed had very markedly gone down. Also the store was now full of extraneous business subletting the space (there was a mailboxes etc. or some similar store where the former ticket counter had been). They were obviously understaffed on techs and there were always a high number of machines out of order or frozen.

Anyway, although this move theater sounds great at first, I sincerely doubt they'll be able to maintain any sort of quality service (even mechanized service) at those prices for very long. They'll go under shortly... just like their sad brother business.

Ticket Scalping

[DoorFrame]

This idea is somewhat doomed if movie ticket scalping were to run unchecked. Scalpers would just need to buy 100 tickets at .20p each, a 20 pound investment, and then wait for showtime. Suddenly you can sell each one for 5 pounds each and you've got a HUGE profit margin. Eventually whole theatres would sell out weeks in advance and everyone would have to hussle with the scalpers outside if they wanted to get in. I think that would effectively kill any sort of business plan... people don't enjoy dealing with scalpers.

Re:Ticket Scalping

[Anonymous Coward]

hey genius -- ever think that someone smarter than you (i.e. anyone) has thought of that and may actually do something unimaginably (to you) clever like link a ticket to a name, or limit sales per person, or any of about 1e6 other possiblites? Oh, guess not -- so stfu.

low cost survival through dynamic conservation

[Anonymous Coward]

its better than bullowing up?

consult with yOUR creator regarding understanding the relationship between yOUR 'contributions' to corepirate felons, & the Godless nazi-like behaviors of the georgewellian southern baptist freemasons.

Not necessarily cheap...

[BlightThePower]

First a point of order and then an opinion...

At the risk of pissing in the wind here... the answer to quite a few questions that are above this are in the article.

Those confused by the viability of the business model: NOTE: Not *all* the tickets will cost 20p. In fact, probably relatively few. As the article says, you could actually pay 5 pounds, which is more than my local cinema charges now. Sure, the tickets will be on average cheaper but this 20p thing is clearly an advertising gimmick. And as such it seems to be working so far.

I wonder how succesful this will be. Flying, if the experience as a whole is reduced in quality is fine; its a functional activity getting from A-to-B. (EasyJet=no "free" inflight snack or drink, no "free" papers, the crews do the cleaning etc, you are herded on, you are herder off) You don't fly for the sake of it. Going to the cinema on the otherhand is about more than the film itself. Depending on how far corners are cut (maintenance, technical specs of equipment, cleanliness etc.) it might be a bit unappealing as something you might do for the sake of it.

Personally I welcome this if only because I can grandly goto a more expensive cinema round the corner and be able to watch in peace without rowdy teenagers annoying me. All for a few extra quid. Seems like a bargain to me. Everyone will be happy :-P

Looks like home depot.

[SphynxSR]

I clicked the link to the site and I thought I was at home depot.

Re:Multiplex history - concrete cows

[mikey_boy]

from what I understand, all the cowparade cows are made from fibreglass aren't they? The ones in Milton Keynes are concrete (and nothing to do with raising money, they just sit in a field next to a dual carriageway and a housing estate)

easy* is a mixed blessing

[drix]

I am a foreign student currently studying abroad in Europe, meaning that probably I represent one of easy*'s biggest demographics. I (and all my friends) almost always fly easyJet to travel, we rent easyCar to drive to France or Andorra, and we check our e-mail abroad at easyInternetCafe. easy is the real thing--it's cheap as hell, especially if you book really early. On the other hand the "customer experience" leaves a lot to be desired. For example, in an effort to cut costs even further, easyInternetCafe literally fired all their employees except for about 15 at the home office. No actual easyInternetCafe employees, work in the easyInternetCafes. Which is at once dumbfounding and frustrating. If your computer crashes or the machine eats your money when you try to buy time, well, you're fucked. No recourse. Lots of the computers are broken, people leave their trash laying around, there are always wierdos looking at really sick, graphic porn, and worse, the cafes are unsafe. Twice now I have seen people brazenly mugged, in broad daylight, in nearly packed easyInternetCafes. Similar experiences on easyJet; they farmed out the personnel contract (at least here in Spain) to some company named EuroHandling, whose ticket agents are assholes and unwilling to help you out in any way, especially if you arrive after 40 minutes before departure time. So I'm a little skeptical of easyCinema, even though I'd probably give it a whirl if it came to a town near me. But sentences like "All we ask is that you don't leave any litter behind" sounds like a sweet way of saying, "we're not paying for janitors, please don't trash our theaters." Personally, I'll gladly pay the extra 2 to avoid sitting on someone else's half-eaten nachos, but hey, that's me.

The Belgian approach then!

[pommiekiwifruit]

Yes you do have to pay to go to the toilet in the cinema in Brussels. And they are split into groups of only two cubicles which anyone who has a knowledge of queuing theory will tell you is a bad idea from the users point of view (I got shouted at (in multiple languages) for taking too long).

BTW the Odeon Leicester Square (in London) has loos right off the side of the front of the cinema, so it is easy to dash out and not miss anything (beginning of act 3, the slow smoochy scene).

Understandable?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, now that is strange, because it is well known that many theatres profit from popcorn, drinks etc, and not from ticket sales.

But try to copy or break the encryption on a DVD

[crovira]

and they'll go to Norway and haul your ass into a US court.

Re:Actual cost of movie going in Australia.

[Paradise Pete]

and we do not ladle hot melted butter over the popcorn.

Why not? Popcorn by itself is bland and tasteless. It's just the delivery mechanism for warm oil, salt, and butter.

high prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Low-cost cimemas would be great. Around here, in the greater Detroit area, it's $8.75US for a movie, way too much for me to see them. I imagine pretty soon prices will hit $10.00.

At these high prices, it becomes a much easier decision for people to just buy the DVD with extra scenes and watch it on the huge-ass widescreen projection TV's that we all have nowdays.

At $.33 though, I'd be watching them in the theatre.

And outside London

[salimma]

Weekday afternoon:
concessions £3.50, members £3.50, adults £4.50

Weekday after 6pm:
concessions £5.00, members £4.50, adults £5.50

Weekends, Friday after 6pm:
members £4.50, adults £5.50

This is for York City Screen, a Picturehouse Cinema, that shows lots of non-mainstream European and American movies, but also show blockbusters like the Matrix and Lord of the Rings.

Not too much of a rip-off; London prices are exorbitant though, granted. Mostly to do with property pricing I expect.

Though funnily, for ethnic food, London tends to be *cheaper* than north England.

Collusion?

[scoove]

easyCinema is being given the bird by Hollywood who will not allow it to show it's high cost movies for a low price for fear that it will create a domino effect in the future

Who in Hollywood will not allow it? Certainly this isn't a coordinated effort, as that would be collusion and that'd be illegal per US antitrust.

Even sending little "smoke signals" can get one in trouble, such as investigations kicked off by the recent $10 airline rate increase which has attracted DoJ interest again.

If this is indeed true, it would sound as if Hillary Rosen might have a cellmate to keep her company.

*scoove*

Terriffic

[Anonymous Coward]

Another idiot who can't punctuate. It is "its" for possessive, not "it's".

Good idea for filling empty seats

[rollingcalf]

I am not the type to watch a movie in the first couple of weeks, so when I do get around to seeing one, the place is usually over 60% empty, sometimes even 90%. Dynamic pricing would allow them to fill seats when movies are no longer "hot", while still charging a fairly high price for first-week blockbusters.

It really makes no sense that all movies at a given cinema are for the same price, whether it is an opening day blockbuster or a mediocre film in its last week. It is nothing but price-fixing by the motion picture cartels that causes ticket prices to defy the laws of supply and demand.

This one guy's mistake is that he could increase his profits by selling popcorn and other food and beverages, given that the lower ticket prices would increase the number of people and the amount they are willing to spend on refreshments. Concession stands are profit centers, not costs to be minimized.

Re:Good idea for filling empty seats

[Anonymous Coward]

personally, I wouldn't *want* to go to the theater if it was 100% full, or even 75%.

I'm not that tall. My partner isn't that tall. I'm also claustrophobic. I almost never (read: only when someone else is buying!) go to the newest hot release movie - I wait a week or two and avoid the crowd.

I want to be sure that I can get a seat where no one's directly in front of me (blocking screen), no one's directly behind me (kicking me, complaining that I'm blocking the screen, or throwing candy into my hair - yes, this has happened), and if possible, no one's NEXT to me (so I can put my purse on the seat instead of the often-sticky floor!)

Perceived value

[Halvard]

it shouldn't matter what price they sell on the tickets at for we poor folk?

There's such a thing as percieved value. Manufacturers all the time chastise or cut off organizations that sell their products for lower than a particular amount. For example, several years ago, I worked for a regional PC distributor and Gigabyte would check into the prices that we and other distributors sold for. They wouldn't dictate pricing but they would strongly suggest that a level not be breached.

This same perceived value is what I think killed Corel when they still had the Netwinder business. They were selling them for about $699 and competing in a space where they would replace or take the place of a new purchase of a several thousand US dollar Windows server, function as a workstation, server as a Webserver|mailserver|firewall, etc. The price was so low that it was questioned by people buying computer assets who ultimately bought products that were much more expensive, cost more to maintain, were more prone to failure, etc.

In terms of movies, in the mind of the consumer, a US$0.50 movie calls into serious question why someone would pay US$8.50 or more. We already don't like the expensive movie prices that have vastly outstripped inflation over the last 30 years already. Dislike would probably turn to anger and boycott if a vendor started selling ticket for US$0.50 even if it was showing on a wide screen TV to 20 people in a room.

Further, the high price of cable TV rates, cable TV Pay per view and subscription channels like HBO would be questioned. I don't think the Studios are willing to go down this road. Too many questions about where they would be on the other side from probable consumer anger.

Just the beginning...

[GreggyBUIUC]

I think this article was referenced on slashdot a while ago.

The question is, how long until dynamic pricing permeates more of our markets? Dell tried this for a while with fluctuating prices on its website depending on the demand. People got pissed because they could buy a laptop one minute and the next it was $50 cheaper. Coke was thinking about the same thing, but got slammed by the public when it announced that it was investigating ways to "automatically raise prices for its drinks in hot weather." The article poses the question though: "Consider what the reaction might have been to this headline: "Coke testing machine that automatically discounts prices in cool weather.""

Being an Econ major I get frustrated with supply and demand curves because the truth is, they don't really exist... not in a measurable way at least. Its impossible for me to go out into the marketplace and know the exact equilibrium price for a given quantity supplied. However, we are closer now in history than ever before to being able to manage real time data, especially over the web, in order to dynamically change prices to reach these equilibrium prices. In many instances its just bringing the scalper's market straight to the distributor -- and while everyone complains when you pay $100 for a $50 concert ticket, few see the other side of the coin where you could pay $2 for a theater seat that will otherwise go unused -- however both are circumstances of the free market (surplus and shortage).

Second Look

[Tellalian]

Did anyone else first read the title as "Low Cost Cinema Through Dynamic Piracy"?

St. Joan of Arc - PRAY FOR US!

[Anonymous Coward]

St. Joan, your courage and your faith in God accomplished great things. I ask your aid in fighting the good fight. Let my purpose be clear, my motives right. Let me not waiver in the face of difficulties. With your support I am unafraid and willing to do my utmost. This I ask in Jesus' name.

Has everyone forgotten the employees?

[chadamir]

Assuming that this idea spreads like sars(albeit a lot faster), a lot of kids are going to be without jobs. Under the assumption that there are 4000 theaters in the US alone. Employing a total of 30000 kids, probably another 20000 other people full time. That's 50000 out of a job. It's good for the consumer, but bad for people who work. It's kind of like the age old problem of replacing factory workers with robots. I'm sure it won't spread that fast as the mpaa is opposing it, but it's still something to think about.

Bring-your-own Cinema

[Snart Barfunz]

I plan to open a chain of storefront DIY cinemas. They'll be rentable in 2 hour chunks, seat 20-50, and have state of the art video projection and sound. You rent it and bring your own DVD. Who you invite, whether you charge, and what you show is up to you.

Re:Bring-your-own Cinema

[Anonymous Coward]

no you don't asshat. stop lying/fantasizing. get back on the cluetrain and try again, if you didn't hurt yourself too badly falling off.

Re:Bring-your-own Cinema

[Snart Barfunz]

Of course I'll have to mop down the saets after some of the customers

Why is payment an issue AND why no concession

[vespazzari]

AFAIK film distributors charge based on a fixed ticket price, I am not sure exactly what that is but I think it is around 6.50 or 7.00 and the theaters are allowed to charge whatever they want, so long as they pay the agreed upon percentage of the preset ticket price. So if a theater charges 4.00 for a ticket they will still be required to pay the distributor like 60% of 6.50. The percentage varies but the base ticket price will remain the same. If this is the case, which I am fairly certain that it is, then I do not understand why this would be an issue unless easyCinema is only willing to pay based on the actually purchase price of each individual ticket. Granted, they would have to charge a much higher price closer to show time to make up the difference.

And another note, easyCinema is not going to have a concession stand, while that does seem to be the model for how they do business - require as few people as humanly possible. Concession stands have such a large profit margin, its not even funny. For example a 35 lb bag of popcorn kernels costs about 10.00 (it is about the size of a medium size bag of dog food) and then a theater can turn around and sell a (large) bag of popped popcorn for 5.00 (or even more, sometimes). A bag of kernels will yeild well over 100 (large) popcorns, so, you do the math. It really does not seem smart to me to discontinue the concession stand all together, maybe things are different in the UK though

theater profits

[vistic]

I worked at a large local Harkins Theatres multiplex here in the Phoenix area when I was in high school.

I remember on our first day they told us how much of that movie ticket sale goes to the actual theater... it was less than a dollar as I recall. The rest all goes to Hollywood. Basically theaters make their money through the sale of concessions like overpriced popcorn and candy, and overpriced soda pop. Without those sales, the theater goes under for sure. That's why they cost so much and also why you can't bring outside food or drink inside the theater.

I don't understand how a movie ticket COULD be sold that low considering how much of that $6-8 sale is supposed to go to the studios. If the theater itself did eat the cost of the ticket, I can just imagine how expensive even a small popcorn would be then? Or is there something else they're going to get their money from selling other than food?

Seems weird to me.

Re:theater profits

[Anonymous Coward]

rtfa asshole, they're not selling ANY snacks. popcorn or otherwise. goddamn motherfucking morons that think anyone who gives a shit about their wholly uninformed opinion are really getting on my nerves. that means you, usher-boy.

Re:theater profits

[vistic]

ummmmm..... ok. :-p

Want to work at an easycinema?

[EddWo]

Cinema Safety and Technical Officer (salary £14k)
based in Milton Keynes.

Main Accountabilities

Emergency evacuation warden, able to demonstrate knowledge of and carry out the Company's emergency evacuation procedures.
Maintain and operate projection and sound equipment.
Make up/break down films. Display "show" reels in accordance with procedure scheduling plans.
Install, upgrade, repair, swap-out and troubleshoot PC's.
Maintain and troubleshoot vending machines, including testing, resetting and swapping-out of internal components, changing print heads and rolls.
Configure, manage and troubleshoot Access Control System software.
Manage, maintain and troubleshoot turnstile barriers, door keypad and local area network.
Monitor and troubleshoot ISP connection and UPS devices.

Manage all warranty, returns and local third party support issues and source and maintain stock of IT consumables and spares.

To act as Safety Supervisor in charge of carrying out a possible evacuation as required when not rostered on other duties.
To ensure compliance with the Conditions of the cinema licence (attached).
Monitor day-to-day operation of cinema (staff, cleaning, turnaround time, premises and call centre) and reports to head office as appropriate.
Knowledge/Skills/Experience

Essential:
Existing projection and management experience required.
Perfectionist with eye and ear for excellence.
Team oriented.
Competencies

Confident and positive Team orientated.
Achievement orientated ('Can do' attitude).
Reliable.
Flexible.
Enjoys persuading/motivating.
Success driven.

Sounds like they want you to run the entire cinema single handed, for 14k a year. Who fancies doing that job? Can they find people with experiance in Management, Computing, Telephone systems, Turnstiles, Vending Machines, Internet Services, Customer Relations, Customer Safety, Film projection systems, and splicing together the advertising?
They want to run these places with only about 3 staff on the premises.

Call Centre Operator/ Usher (salary £10k)
based in Milton Keynes.

Main Accountabilities
Emergency evacuation warden, able to demonstrate knowledge of and carry out the Company's emergency evacuation procedures.

Sell cinema admissions through the onsite call centre and reply to customer enquiries over the web.

Maintain the cleanliness of the cinema, including the auditoriums between showings.

The people who arn't doing the technical things have to be both call centre operators and cleaners?

Sounds like exploitation to me

http://www.easygroup.co.uk/easyCinema/jobs.html

The Easy Business Model

[ites]

Stelios has actually a very sound business model behind easyCinema, as he has used in easyjet, and the other easy companies.

The principle is that capital should always be working, even if at a loss. A cinema seat (like a plane seat) that is left unsold represents a complete loss. A seat sold cheap represents less of a loss. So, by adjusting prices dynamically to suit demand, using the Internet to calculate demand exactly, and by reducing staff costs, the average seat price drops. It's very simple.

Before you start saying "it's illegal to sell at a loss in order to capture a market", it's worth comparing an empty seat (loss) and a cheap seat (smaller loss).

Also for US readers, it's worth knowing that in Europe, prices are generally high (around 8 Euro) and fairly inflexible. So while cinemas are always packed on Friday and Saturday night, they are generally empty on week nights. Stelios' business model is to get bums on seats all week long, so using his capital better, and allowing the weekend prices to drop too. It is true that this will wreck the existing cinema industry, since the difference for a family of 4 is significant: today, perhaps Euro 60 including popcorn and drinks. At easyCinema, around Euro 20.

Stelios is a business hacker: find the inefficiencies in the system and exploit them. You really have to admire him.

3 more geeks ...

[idontneedanickname]

Those 3 seats would not be filled by three more geeks because those three geeks are poor university students and can't afford to spend 20 bucks to see it right when it comes out, they'll wait till it's cheaper. Through your method you may be denying the three most "dedicated" geeks entrance to the movie.

Ethnic joke

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

Though funnily, for ethnic food, London tends to be *cheaper* than north England.

Do you see less rats, dogs or cats in London than elsewhere?

EC wants to pay fixed cost, not per sale fees

[inputsprocket]

According to this article in The Times, easyCinema is trying to get the big moovies by paying a fixed fee with the distributors. This is apparently what the legal deal is all about.

The original BBC article has been edited since its first post and no longer talks about the problems faced by easyCinema. However, there is more writeup on easyCinema's problems in a separate report. The report states that in the UK, the studios take up around 90% of the box office proceeds. This practise was ruled upon in 1994 in Britain as "reasonable". It looks like for Stelios's venture to succeed bigtime, he needs to have the studios change their way they recuperate their costs ie with fixed prices for the cinema's. Fixed pricing though puts more of the movie flop expense on to the cinemas, who would have to become more careful as to which movies they pick. I doubt he will have success with fixed cost movie reels from the studios.

Still, he has managed to swing a deal with Sony (Columbia Tristar) to pay 1.30GBP (~$2.00) per person for two of their films.
I think the guy is going to have a very tough uphill struggle to make this succeed. The French film financing board, the CNC are looking closely at their success.

Well I just hope he bothers to focus the projector

[mikerich]

The Point (as in 'What's The Point'?) Milton Keynes was the first multiplex in the UK and probably cursed from that moment by opening with 'Rocky IV'.

The reason UCI pulled out was falling attendance at the cinema, which has to be blamed on the piss-poor state of the cinema.

Watching a movie at UCI was an act of endurance; there was no sound-proofing between screens - so you might be trying to enjoy a quiet movie whilst Arnie grunted his way through his latest crapfest.

And then the projectors were continually out of focus - subtitles were unreadable and 'The Phantom Menace' was actually worse than normal.

UCI were only interested in fleecing the customers, they claimed to regularly service their projectors - but things only got worse.

As soon as Cineworld opened over in the XScape complex we all went over there. (Although the Lara Croftesque advert for Cineworld is bloody annoying). UCI we didn't miss you.

A question. Since just about every hand-held camera these days has autofocus - why don't cinema projectors come complete with an autofocus to keep them sharp?

Best wishes,
Mike.

OT: British companies ruining America

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

I could say the same thing about a little known british monopoly in America called Chartwells. They own exclusive food contracts on some 80% of the american universities which say they will give 15% of profits back to the university. Then, once they get the contract, they jack up all their prices 20%, and pay their workers slave wages (work study) simply because they are on campus and can get away with it. After they kick off all other on campus competition which existed before them, the university is locked in, and can't turn back.

Their cafeteria contracts are even worse. They lock the university into a housing contract that forces on campus residents to purchase a minimum food contract (around 10 meals a week). The price for this is around $6 per meal. In actuality, the food quality is so low (the highest employee turnaround in the region) and they produce so little food that not everyone can or will eat all of their meals in a given week (they stop making food for dinner at 6:00pm, and you must get there at 5:30 if you want food that isn't cold because of the long lines). This causes the actual per meal price to raise to over $10 per meal on average(for food plan students, which is 100% of on campus students, plus off campus people who purchase one).

Our student newspaper uncovered a bunch of illegal tactics they have been doing for years and caused our university to start a new food purchase program that will give us food vouchers around town in lieu of meals from Chartwells, but this behaviour goes on around the country, in almost every university in America, and has been so for years (and will likely continue for a long time).

Re:In Milton Keynes?

[Crazy Eight]

Your aside reminds me of something Benjamin Disraeli once said: "I am deeply sorry for the unkind things I said about Liverpool. I had not seen Leeds at the time."

Re:Wha lawyers? - not exactly right

[1gor]

You misrepresent EasyJet business model. They are not trying to be simply cheaper than competition. They will reduce ticket price for off-peak-time viewings but will charge full price (or more) when demand is good. So in terms of *revenue* they may as well bring in more cash from each movie because they capture more of the market thier way. Just as it happened with budget air travel in Europe. Who has benefited from its explosive growth? The public - more routes, more opportunity to travel; EasyJet - more profits. Who has lost? Former industry leaders like BA.

Not true.

[jotaeleemeese]

The model he tries is as follows: you start selling your stuff cheap and wait for the market to react, if the market demands more then you raise prices. Latecomers to the market pay the most because the product (cinema seats for an X movie) have become scarce.

If your product is shit (like Matrix Reloaded) ideally buyers would be few and prices remain low or vene lower to attract more buyers.

It has nothing to do with selling at a loss, but all with reacting according to demand (sought after films become more expensive, trashy inconsequential movies remain cheap to see).

You obviously have not bought plain tickets with Easy Jet, if you plan your trip well in advance you can have massive savings.

I am not associated with Easy Jet, I am just a happy customer.

No pop-corn, candy, sold.

[jotaeleemeese]

Just for the record, this new cinema is not selling junk food at all (you can bring your own pop-corn).

They hope that the fair pricing of movies will allow to generate profit (sell out ones would mean that some last tickets were really expensive).

You is not we.

[jotaeleemeese]

I would be willing to plan ahead if that would save me money.

I already do so for opera, concerts, football, plain tickets.

Why should cinema be any different?

Yes.

[jotaeleemeese]

Only movies that people want to see would become scarce, thus raising prices.

Bingo!

[jotaeleemeese]

Glad to see some people that get it.

Wow

[LuckyLeprechaun31]

I need that in my city. A new company took over all the theaters in the area and ticket prices during the week went from $5 to $8.50.