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Topic: Restaurant Row Theatres will become a $1.00 cinema
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Thomas Procyk
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1842
From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 01-05-2004 09:25 AM
Our sub-run does VERY well and we charge $1.50/$2.00 with $0.75 on Tuesdays, which sell out a lot of the shows.
Roger, you should know by now that NO theater makes its money off of tickets! As long as people buy concessions, the place makes money. Problem is, in some areas people will be glad to shell out $1 for a ticket and walk right past the stand.
As for maintenance issues, yeah, there are problems. We, like many other sub-runs (except for one I remember being built from the ground-up as a stadium subrun somewhere down south) are in a formerly closed cinema. Just when you're done fixing or patching or painting one thing, three more turn up.
Sub-runs can be profitable if they're run correctly. As long as you keep the idea of, "Oh well, what do you expect for $1?" out of people's heads and replace it with, "Wow! This place only charges $1!!?" you'll be successful.
=TMP=
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 01-05-2004 01:11 PM
When Cinemark opened their 17-screen here, they turned their 12-screen in the same mall into a $1.50 theater. Now, as far as I was concerned, that 12-screener was "Film Done Wrong, or maybe Mediocre At Best" from the day it opened. But it's flourished at the bargain prices, and they do seem to maintain it fairly well, at least in terms of cleanliness. Movies still mostly look and sound like crap there though, just like they did when it first opened (1989?). Dim, fuzzy images and weak, anemic sound. Yuck. I hate that place. The new 17 is much much better.
No bargain prices at the concession stand though.
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Joe Schmidt
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 172
From: Billings, Montana, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 01-12-2004 06:58 AM
More on this place, sent by friend who lives in Honolulu -- he says:
Anyway, I’d first seen that written up in Pacific Business News. This week, the news comes out in the weekly tabloids (one an independent, the other an ad rag published by the Advertiser. Both of them quote the Wallace manager (who’s been there for 18 months, having previously run the art house theatre at the Art Academy) as saying poor concession sales (of $3 sodas and $4 popcorn) were to blame. “My vision was about the films. For them [Wallace], they’d show anything to sell the popcorn.” Wallace upgraded chocolate at the theatre, but was unwilling to put real butter on popcorn or sell espresso.
The closing, from a researcher, states that “the second-run approach is usually a holding pattern until something better comes along. In cases of older theatres, it’s usually not a long-term proposition.”
Which I take to mean they will close the theatres when their lease runs out. Why go there (even for $1) when you stick to the floor, and a mile in either direction takes you to the Dole Cannery Signature theatres or the brand-new Consolidated Ward theatres.
With no good movie theatres in Billings MT, we'alls here just waits for the DVD, or pass altogether. One of the Albertson stores here rents'em for $1. So why put up with sticky feet, bad projection and general yuck.
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