As a percentage the 10:00 PM show represents 3% or our business. I don't think we will be running it next week.

Every now and them someone approaches us about doing a Midnight film at our theatre. I don't think it would do very well with our past experience with a 10:00 PM time.

How many of you do well with late films?

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However the only place I saw a regular midnight round do well was the theatre I worked at up in Michigan. It was in a town that had FIVE colleges in the immediate area. Now that's a lot of college students, and since we (college students) don't sleep it was the best time to go see movies. We only ran the midnight on Friday and Saturday, but they did very well. The rest of the week our last show typically started by 10:30. Frequently our late shows did better than prime, I found that the college students would wait till later to avoid younger kids and adults. It was also a good study break.

If you have mostly highschool kids around I would think that anything starting after about 9:00 (maybe 10:00) would be about as late as you would want to go. If you are in a area that has mostly adults or older folks, I would think that you could start the last show by 8:00 and be just fine.

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We'd lose more money running the early morning shows.

And... don't ask me why we still have coyote ugly. I have no clue!!

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The Raven in Healdburg used to run midnight shows on the weekends, starting in the summer and continuing into the fall and winter. They were minimaly advertised cult flicks.

If you guys ended up doing a cult series - all you'd really have to do is make flyers and paper the Junior College and Sonoma State University... they'd show up.

About 6 years ago my old boss did Monty Python's The Meaning of Life -- and it did REALLY well. Now Blazing Saddles on the other hand... didn't do so well... NOT the kind of movie college students will jump up to see.

Anyway... there's my 25 cents.

The midnight crowd is definately not the same crowd as the earlier shows. Having colleges or a young (but past driving age) population seems to be a necessity. Also what Hollywood offers can affect the midnight business too...many films don't play well to the midnight crowd while others, cult films and the like, can do really well.

Another thing I have noticed is that sometimes a midnight schedule has to be cultivated....the kids need to know that it is a regular thing and not here and gone. I remember opening a theatre and shortly after starting midnight shows...nothing...six months later they were doing rather well in a 5-plex.

In short, it isn't a sure bet either way.

Steve

Hell!

I was talking about 10:00 PM shows!

I'm never going to do a midnight show.

I have never seen 10:00 shows do well, as a rule. It isn't a midnight show, so you won't get that crowd and it is too late for an evening show so you miss that crowd too. I would avoid scheduling any evening show past 9:45 in most areas.

One thing I have noticed around here is that the value of the second evening shows (the "9s") has gone way down in value but the "twilight" shows have gone up. I'm seeing more and more theatres going with a 4-5:00 first show and an 7-8:00 second show and calling it a night (weekday schedule, not Friday or weekends).

Steve