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A Subscription-Based Movie Theater
When the local movie theater in Oakhurst, California went out of business, residents were stuck without a way to watch films on the big screen without driving for at least an hour beforehand. Now, three men are trying to resurrect the theater with one major change: instead of relying solely on ticket sales, their business model revolves around subscriptions. From the article: 'They ran models of Nelson's subscription-based theater idea, showing that to break even they would need 3,000 people, or 15% of the mountain communities, to sign up. For $19.95 per month, a member would be able to see each movie one time and buy individual tickets for friends. Non-members could buy a $16 day pass. While researching the theater business, Nelson learned that studios are transitioning to digital distribution. Thousands of independent theaters that couldn't afford equipment upgrades have closed over the last 10 years, according to industry experts. Hundreds of others — which, like the Met, still show print films — remain on the brink. The subscription business model could pay for the new equipment.'
UGC (the AMC theatres in France) used to (maybe still have) memberships that allowed you to see evey movie they show as many times as you want for 15euros. Lots of people were subscribing to it. I am sure they can manage it. Thought the $16 day pass for non subscriber seems over the top. I hope they also have regular $8/10 ticket for one movie. (most people wont see two movies in one day)
When you have a free "movie ticket for everything" you start going to see stuff you would not have seen otherwise. $20 a month is not a bad deal. I'd totaly take that.
Where I live in Australia it costs around $17 per adult to see a movie at the cinema. The last movie I went to had around 8 people watching it. If they charged $5 per adult I bet there would have been a lot more people watching that movie (that may have also purchased overpriced crappy food from the candy bar).
It is ridiculous to expect $17 from someone to watch a shitty movie, considering the majority of movies pumped out these days are pretty terrible.
would be the Green Bay Packers model of community ownership. Keep the theater private but sell shares in the company; for $300 you would be part owner, and would be able to buy a subscription for either $15/month or get a $3 discount on individual tickets.
Don't kill your fuck buddy, they are very useful.
This is a way to have a movie theater in their town without driving an hour. You need to factor that into your estimations.
If I lived an hour away from any other movie theater, I would pay $20/month to keep my local theater alive. Sometimes it's fun to see a movie on the big screen, with your friends.
If that experience isn't something you care about, there's Netflix.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
"Have to"? Why? Because you'd shrivel up and die if you don't have a dose of artificially-flavored popcorn with artificially-sweetened fizzy water within a 2-hour window?
Kid-proof tablet..
That's where most of the theatres actually make their money on first-week releases, though, because of how much goes to the studio in ticket revenue.
Payphone booths and arcades are. Plain and simple. Too many other options.
I only go to the movies for the latest releases (so few that are worth it). The big players will hang on. I almost think the small theaters are being run out by design - because the longer a movie is out, the bigger cut the theater gets from ticket sales which start out at 100% for the studios.
Today, people can buy 70" flat led screen for around $1900, an 83" Mitsubishi dlp for $1800 (92" for $2800). Rent 3-6 month old movies at Redbox for a little over a buck, stream it from Netflix, etc.
It's a shame, because of the whole going out of the house thing (although, since I only view Matinees where it's empty - any potential social value dwindles to nothing). Speaking of social value, the only theater that's been built in my growing area the last 10 years has been one that is a restaurant and where you can order real food. So, added value options may grow from being a novelty to the norm.
Who knows, with TVs getting cheaper and cheaper all the time, in 30 years, huge A/Ced and heated theaters that sit empty most of the time may have largely become a thing of the past except in places like Las Vegas or the planetariums.
I view the 3D thing as largely a play to stay relevant, and it's probably not working all that well. I'm sure some theater owners are praying for Avatar 2 and 3 to come out soon.
Indeed, season passes are as old as the discovery of fire. The Amalgamated Neanderthal Conglomerate "Ungfrthfrulptlf" (GmbH) used to paint on the cave walls about amazing savings:
Club just one woman and kill two mammoths a year and enjoy a VIP spot of dirt by the campfire!*
MUCH cheaper than a saber-tooth per fire.
*Cannot be combined with any other cave painting. Limited time offer. Dirt spots dependent upon availability and size of mammoth, woman.
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I don't know about you, perhaps I am an old fuddy duddy, but I can't imagine that 15% of residents would go for that. I personally go to cinemas barely once per year and a lot of the folks I know are similar. Okay, there is the day pass options, which would work, but if their business model relies on 15% as being the critical mass needed, it seems a bet with some rather long odds.
And while $20 a month does pass for itself after two movies, are you really going to go to see that many movies? Are there even that many new movies coming out these days - let alone that many worth watching?
Now, if the cinema was playing older movies or classics along with the new releases, that might start to get interesting.
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I book films for a local theatre. Unless there are major changes with film distribution terms, this won't fly. Films are rented to theatres with terms that require a minimum guarantee from the theatre versus a percentage of the boxoffice gross. For a first run title, the percentage will start high (think 90% or so) and drop each week until it gets to 35% or so. For a 90% title, the theatre gets $1 of your $10 ticket, and the distributor gets $9. Boxoffice reports are submitted daily and list the number of tickets sold for each price category and the total number of tickets sold and boxoffice take for the day for the film in question.
There is no way that a subscription pricing model would work under standard film rental terms, since there is no standard ticket price on which to base the percentages. Any theatre that tried this without first convincing the film distributors to all change their business models (ha!) would never be able to get films to show. This is an industry that does not really like innovation and which is reluctant to change a business model that has worked well (more or less) for the last hundred years (or so).
The D-cinema thing is an entirely different issue. Cost is about $60k per screen for the projector and server, assuming that a sound system already exists for 35mm and can be (mostly) re-used for D-cinema. Only DCI-compliant equipment can be used--this is not the same thing as a regular off-the-shelf video projector, as it contains specific crypto hardware to make movie piracy difficult (no doubt it will be cracked eventually, however). No one is actually forcing this conversion at the moment, so 35mm film is still viable for the time being. This conversion process has been discussed for the last ten years or so, but has only really started to speed up over the last two.
They'd have to give a discount on food as well. At least in the US popcorn and a drink run you as much as the ticket.
We hardly ever buy movie food, we just bring our own. The local (Australia) cinema won't let you bring a backpack or other large bag in (tripping hazard) but they haven't batted an eyelid when we've put the backpack in their lockers and taken in our own popcorn etc. Three of my kids and my wife can't have gluten so buying the food there isn't really an option - too much risk of contamination (who knows what they put in that 'butter'!).
I prefer not to have food at all in the cinema, but when you have young kids it's a great way to keep them still while they get interested in the movie.
Membership has its priviledges.
I am sure there are a lot of ways they could add incentives in with the price of admission. There is still something nice about the act of going to the cinema. Watching shows at home tends to be a less formal thing and so you usually don't turn your phone off and other distractions tend to take precedence. At the movies, you are locking yourself away and dedicating yourself to the big screen experience.
I might return to the theaters if I had a subscription of some sort. I think perhaps $20/monthly would not be a plan suitable for me, but perhaps a "discount membership" which would enable me to watch movies at a discount and perhaps excluding "opening night" movies would be a better plan for me.
Why is that movie theaters seem to be about the only business that not only doesn't understand or even attempt to follow supply and demand with their pricing of both the attractions and the food, but seem to publicly admit that they don't think supply/demand makes sense? If nobody wants to buy something I'm selling, the price is too high. Any sane person in the world would lower their price. That's the whole idea behind supply and demand. But what do movie theaters do? Jack up the price even more, and claim that they need to do so to survive. On what crazy planet does that even begin to make sense?
Popcorn is CHEAP. Why would you charge $7 for it and then complain that nobody buys it?
Sodas are CHEAP. Why would you charge $5 for it and then complain that nobody buys it?
I don't know about theaters around the country, but where I live we have "cheap nights" on Tuesdays, where movie tickets are a good deal cheaper than usual. And typically the theaters are packed full on that night. Every other night? You could count patrons in a given theater without running out of digits on your hands/feet. And even *THAT* doesn't tell theater owners that their regular prices are too high?! Your theaters are packed full on cheap nights because the price is easier to swallow. It shouldn't cost a family of four over $80 to go have a movie night, yet that's exactly what it cost a friend of mine to take his family to a movie on the weekend. Hell, it cost me and a friend, just two of us, almost $50 to go see 48 fps Hobbits a couple weeks ago. Almost $50 for two tickets and one popcorn/drink/chocolate combo. That's way too much money, and that is exactly the reason movie theaters are struggling, yet they just don't get it.
Supply and demand. This is an insanely old concept that pretty much everyone seems to understand. Except movie theater owners. WHY?!
Look at video games, and Valve's Steam store in particular. They've publicly discussed a few times over the past few years how they have seen insane increases in revenue whenever they have big sales on games, on the order or 40x increase in revenue in one case! Here's what I think was the first article discussing it back in 2009: http://www.edge-online.com/features/valve-are-games-too-expensive/
Movie theaters' own cheap nights prove that supply and demand is warranted in their market, just like any other. If they would lower prices of everything, tickets and refreshments/food, they'd see way more people, and way more money, come their way. If only they'd take their heads out of their asses.
Maybe you are the new-fangled type that prefers to watch media on their home entertainment system?
I've found that certain movies are enjoyable on the big screen, and less so on the small. Does that mean they lack something? Probably -- but for me, it's about the experience of the film. If it needs to be seen on the big screen for me to properly get the full effect, so be it. If it makes a less stellar movie feel like it was worth it, then it was worth it.
I don't go to the movies twice a month-- probably more 6-8 times a year-- but if I could go whenever for $19.95 a month, I might see almost every movie. If have have to shell out $10 for a movie, I have to think really hard if it will be worth it. If I've already shelled out the cash, it's a no-brainer.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I think you underestimate how much the local community might be willing to back up local business, if it's clear that the choice is otherwise having none at all. Once you start losing social facilities like the cinema then young people start moving away and you turn into a dying community of old farts. I live in a considerably bigger city and never feel my presence is "make-or-break" for services, sure individual shops come and go but there'll always be another. Out near our cabin I notice an entirely different attitude in the permanent residents, they'd better use the local services because otherwise they'll go tits up and then they won't have any. With apologies to Niemöller:
First the market forces came for the cinema, and I didn't care out since I didn't use the cinema.
Then they came for the restaurant, and I didn't care since I didn't go to the restaurant.
Then they came for the hospital, and I didn't care since I was healthy and didn't need it.
Then they came for the grocery store, and I found everyone else had already left.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
That is a 104 years of theatre subscription, in your sound system alone!
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
This is my local theater.
Last night they announced that they hit the 3,000 subscriber mark they were shooting for and will make a go at opening.
I wish them the best, though I think there are still some very big questions to be answered about the viability of the business model. Will the studios go along with it? Will subscriptions _remain_ high enough after the buzz fades away to be a viable business? I hope so, but only time will tell. The local economy is almost entirely tourism based, and their model effectively shuts out tourists who I think will be reluctant to shell out $16 for a day pass - so long-term local support is essential.
Where are people going to see movies these days? Pleasure Island from Pinocchio? I've never seen or heard anyone texting, talking, or whatever on their phones. Granted, it's not a monastery, but it doesn't disturb me or ruin the movie for me. If you haven't been to the theater in 15 years, how do you know the behavior has gotten worse?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
That experience has become less and less.
As the size of the silver screen has gone down, the size and resolution of TV sets have gone up.
When I was young, I loved to go to the movie theatre. The screen was a hefty 10x22 meters, or a little over 79' diagonal.
At home we had a 20" TV - we couldn't afford the new huge 26" ones that had just came out.
Nowadays, a typical movie theatre has a screen only a fraction of that size, while the standard TV size this holiday was 55".
Your field of view is going to be filled about as much by your TV at home as the movie screen. And you probably have a better sound system than the utter miscalibrated crap they foist on people these days.
Never mind that you and your friends can imbibe whatever you like. No crying children or idiots who left their cell phone on.
Back in the old days, you also bought numbered seats, and knew that you and your friends would be able to sit together. Now, you have to gamble on that. Whoever runs fastest gets the best seats.
The death of movie theatre going started for me back when LaserDiscs came out, and has continued as movies have become crappier and TVs better. I probably wouldn't go often even if it was free.
Heck, a BD movie on my laptop gives me a more immersive experience.
Let the movie theatres die. They had their time, which was great, but that time is over. Keep a few as living museums in the big cities, and let the rest go.
I'll fondly remember them, but don't need them back any more than I need photo booths and telegrams.
my $25k audio system
Wow, a fool and his money easily parted, indeed!
You're just showing your age. Don't worry, I'm getting up there too. 90% of movies released in the theatre are for people under 40, often well under 40. They are for dates, college students and people with kids. Why do you think you don't care for new movies as much as you used too? They're not getting any worse, you're just moving out of their targeted demographics. Do you think back in the 50s that seniors went to drive-in movies?
Now, if the cinema was playing older movies or classics along with the new releases, that might start to get interesting.
I have often thought that a cinema with smaller rooms and a giant database of TV shows and movies that you could rent by the hour would work. Want to watch 20 hours of Buffy or Star Trek with friends? Groovy, get some comfy chairs, a big screen, and all the popcorn you can pay for. Soundproofing and a private screening means you can yak it up.
But then, I suppose people would prefer their own home cinema in a lot of circumstances, and unsupervised people in dark rooms...
And half that cost was wooden knobs and monster cable.
Learn to love Alaska
Maybe you are the new-fangled type that prefers to watch media on their home entertainment system?
I've found that certain movies are enjoyable on the big screen, and less so on the small.
'White man make big fire... sit far away. Indian make small fire... sit close.'
Sorry, I actually agree regarding the theater experience. But honestly, how often do you get to use the above quote in the actual context it was intended? :)
What stops you from turning off your phone at home?
Maybe you are the new-fangled type that prefers to watch media on their home entertainment system?
Yes and No. Yes, I do watch quite a bit of media on the home entertainment system - but at the same time, for a select bunch of movies, I really do want to watch them on the big screen first. The problem is that there aren't many that fall into that bucket. The last lot I saw were The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Avatar. Having said, I would be quite happy to maybe do a LOtR Trilogy one day, then see the hobbit the next day.
Or you know what, how about Game of Thrones or BSG at the cinema? I do know quite a few folks that would probably LOVE to watch those as a weekly event. I guess what I was trying to say was why does a cinema have to show ONLY the newest movies (most of which I think are crap) - why not expand into a different niche?
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At $25k he is most certainly no fool.
Indeed he is exactly the type of audio expert who could appreciate the $129-a-piece inter-component isolation sheets I'm selling. (white A4-sized, other sizes and colors available for an additional charge, excluding p+p).
Contact me if you are interrested.
I also have 3x3" partially adhesive yellow noise-covers for sale at a price of just $50 each, but these are only for the true audiophile.
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Both big cinema conglomerates In France still do this, and have for years.
Unlimited movies in all cinemas. No blackout times. 20EU per month, or 35EU per month for a couple.
It's a great idea, and lots of people use it - considering normal adult tickets are 10 - 12EU.
The 'gotchya' is that it's a pain in the ass to unsubscribe - it's auto-debited from your bank account each month, so to cancel you need to send a letter via registered post etc to close your membership.
Small price to pay, however!
In the UK, one of the biggest cinema chains in the country - CineWorld - already do a subscription pass that lets you in to any film any number of times, while still using the old distribution model for normal customers.
The problem is that, while yes, you can get in to see any film any time, you still have queue to get a ticket from the desk, and you *cannot* purchase on line ahead of time. Normal paying customers can, so for big blockbuster films on opening night (or opening week depending on how popular it is) it can be nigh on impossible to actually get in for a card holder without having to pay *anyway* just to book ahead.
My mum runs a film group and about 60% of their members have this card, and they're pretty much always treated like second class citizens, with one cashier even outright stating that they don't really care about card holders because they don't bring in any money for them. That card holders tend to be more money savvy and as such won't buy the overprices drinks and popcorn from the stalls.
Then, down the road, there's the smaller, more indie, cinema. Doesn't show as many blockbusters, quite a few indie films, focuses on the smaller, but popular films. Like Life of Pi, Mostly the focus on really good events. I went to see the original cut of Alien and Aliens in there, using the original reels. I missed it, but they also had James Earl Jones taking a Q&A once. They're showing Spirited Away later this month, and I think February is shaping up to be Studio Ghibli month.
It has a really nice bar area (that you wouldn't mind visiting outside of watching a film), and they let you take alcohol into the showing (in plastic glasses), infact, all the smaller cinemas around here do that kind of thing. They don't have over-priced stalls, but they will offer you popcorn from behind the bar. And they're doing quite well.
It's not the pricing model that's failing, it's knowing your core audience and catering for them. If your in a city you can pick and choose your core audience (as exampled above by a giant conglomorate cinema company co-existing 4 streets away from one of the oldest cinemas in the city), however if you're in a small town, or the middle of nowhere, if your core audience doesn't want to go see films, no alternate pricing models are going to fix that. What you need to do is remind them there's a cinema there. Throw some events. Find out what films your patrons want to see and put those films on, even if they're 20 or 30 years old, hell, even if it's from before there was sound, if they want to see it, get a hold of it and put it on.
There seems to be this crazy notion that people only go to the cinema to see new films.
Bullshit. People go to see films in the cinema because watching films in the cinema is fun.
Also, Sing-along Grease night
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
I live in an area such as this.. Indiana. It has many small farm towns where if lucky, there is a gas station and perhaps a restaurant / bar. The town I live in is large enough to support a Walmart, however the theater (built circa 1995) is lacking. Housing 2 "large" screens and 6 smaller ones. I don't know the specific sizes but i think the smaller screens have 4 or 5 seats on each side with one aisle down the middle) The larger 2 screens still do not compare to the newer theaters in Indianapolis which seem HUGE, and aren't even IMAX. The change to digital 3d has forced prices for tickets and coke sky high, but the experience is lacking b/c I can drive for 1 hour and pay the same price and watch in a comfy chair with better sound and video quality. If there is a way that subscription model pricing can be viable, sign me up. I've dropped cable, switched to netflix / vudu / dvds throughout my house, and have cut back in other areas as well. My family and I love going to the movies, but I can't seem to justify the $30 night out at the local theater because I know the options an hour away are so much nicer.