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Author Topic: fellow independents: how is business? Melanie Loggins Expert Film Handler Posts: 154 From: Wayne, NE, USA Registered: Aug 2011 posted 10-29-2019 06:17 PM                        I apologize in advance if this isn't allowed, but I'm in a professional vacuum and need to know if I'm alone. My theatre is failing. We remodeled (completely) and reopened almost 9 years ago. Since then business peaked in 2013 and has been slowly falling off, until this year, when it went off a cliff. Booking has gotten harder, terms have gotten worse, and traffic has been a trickle. There is a fair amount of public buy-in to the theatre, but people like the idea of having a theater more than they seem to actually want to come anymore. I am not looking for suggestions unless you have something you honestly think we haven't considered/tried. What I want to know is, how are you faring? Are we alone in this?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-29-2019 07:51 PM                        I can't say we're off a cliff, but business is somewhat down this year for us. I don't know if we're a good example though... Our economy around here is somewhat shaky right now due to various factors, not the least being the "war on coal" you may have heard about. A lot of younger people have left town - our high school enrollment is just about to dip below 100 for the first time in at least 50 or more years. There is new oil development and a couple of wind farm going up near us though, so there are some bright spots. Something always seems to happen around here to goose things up. Quite a number of the movies have been underwhelming this year, too. They are flash-in-the-pan things. Nothing is sticking. We haven't had a "cultural phenomenon" in I don't know how long. There are also more and more people buying large TVs and of course those damned "fire sticks." [ takes a break to go look at Melanie's theater's website ] So after looking at your website, I know you didn't ask for suggestions unless it's something you haven't thought about yourself. So I have a couple of thoughts: First and foremost, and I don't mean to embarrass you here, but right on your homepage, there is a large headline at the bottom saying "THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE your HOME theatre!" Not exactly the sentiment you are going for, I'm sure. I would just change the word HOME to HOMETOWN and you'll fix that little issue. (I doubt that headline has encouraged many people to actually stay home but hey, it's all about mind-set when it comes to advertising, right?) Now on to the more difficult issue: This is just my own opinion, others might differ, but I think your tickets are really too low priced. You're leaving a lot of money on the table there. It's great to be priced lower than the chains, but you're WAY lower than even the national average. I notice you are doing a "same price for everyone" ticket. You might want to think about going to adult price and kids under 12 price, at least. That way you could raise the adults without raising the kids, at least at first. One other suggestion - do you sell gift cards during the holidays? If not....you should definitely be doing that. If you use a computer for ticket sales, it's easy to add gift cards. If you don't use a computer, just get some punch-cards printed up. (I can send you a picture of what we've used both currently and in the past if you like). The best thing about gift cards is, you get the cash up front and a certain number of cards will never get redeemed, so it's pure profit when that happens. The thing that really caused our gift card sales to take off is, we partnered with the local pharmacy to sell them for us. We still sell them at the theatre, too, but the pharmacy gets all-day traffic and the girls there probably sell at least 85% of our total gift cards, maybe more. We sell the cards on our website too, but "live" sales are the vast majority of the total. I hope these ideas gave you some food for thought. Good luck!  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-29-2019 08:03 PM                     I only serviced independent theaters for the last 42 years. First in Illinois, Wisconsin and Northern Indiana... Then in Utah, AZ, NV, WY, ID and Montana. Some were single screens and some were multiplexes.. some pretty large multiplexes and several 100+ screen independent chains. All in all most of my customers have done pretty good, but any of them will tell you its always a roller coaster ride and there are going to be slow times and busy times. Some how they manage to stay a float and quite a few of them actually do very well and have been in business for decades. BAck in the Midwest some customers built big plexes and then sold them out to AMC and Marcus. Not all of them run ads, but the ones that do make a pretty nice haul doing it. I find that the ones that do very well also have captive audiences where it's 75 to 100 miles to the next theater. Places like Casper, WY, Elko, NV, St George, UT go like gangbusters... Casper, WY is just a movie going town period, it doesn't really matter what you play... they come. Same in Elko, NV where the people couldn't get enough 3-D. But places like Powell, WY do well and it is just a twin screen and only about 20 miles north of Cody, WY which has four more screens. You are fairly close to Sioux City... so people going shopping there may be apt to also see movies while there. I have some customers in Central Utah that have that problem. I would assume that over nine years you have experimented and tried everything under the sun. But one thing I have noticed over my time in this industry is that your booker can make all the difference in the world. Utilizing a booker that books lots of screens can give you a bit more flexibility both to get rid of under performing movies sooner because he can move the film to a different location but to get the type of movies in that might do better in your town. I have seen both those things happen quite a few times. But if you are happy with your booker then I can't really give any more suggestions. And if you are doing your own booking... well... thats also part of problem. Mark  |  IP: Logged James Wyrembelski Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Beaverton, MI, USA Registered: Sep 2015 posted 10-29-2019 09:15 PM                     Well, we just finished our first full year about 10 days ago on the 19th. We remodeled over a couple years and re-opened in 2018. It's hard to say how we are doing since there's really not much to go on. It's doing 1 billion times better than it did with the old owner. (They had prints yanked all the time for basically having 0 customers). The first three months we did extremely well given the novelty of it and I had expected that. What I am seeing now is probably more of a normal flow now that we are basically "just another business" in town and not the new shiny toy. What I haven't seen yet is much of a lift off coming in to November. When I look back, pretty much the only movies that really had us busting at the seams were.....you guessed it...Disney. Anything non Disney either did okay or was rather flat. I have spoken to a couple other owners and they've remarked that this year it seems as if (like Mike said) nothing is really sticking. We also tend to book very heavily on the break....there are too many theaters close to me to not do this. Usually filler weeks tend to be quite tepid at best and the terms aren't usually that much better unless its quite old...so I might as well just get the newest stuff anyways. I'd rather have one good week followed by an okay week rather than two tepid weeks back to back. Regarding ticket prices I'd have to agree. There are plenty around here still doing the 5 dollar admission price. We do 7.00 for anyone over 12, and 5 for 12 and under (or matinees). I see no one batting an eye at the 7.00 price. I probably will raise ticket prices some time next year as well. The bigger places near us have prices ranging from 9.50-13.00. There's plenty of room for me to nudge it up.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 10-30-2019 04:05 AM                     From me as a patron, I used to watch a movie in a proper cinema at least once, more likely twice every week. It's either the wife or a couple of buddies that join me, a bit dependent on the movie, but it's anywhere between 2 and 8 people. It used to be closer to 8 most of the time, but we lost a few souls over time. My taste is pretty broad, so I tend to go see the biggest blockbusters but also alternative productions, there just needs to be something in there that triggers me to spend the time on a movie. The same is true for my movie-going buddies, my wife included. When I'm on vacation, I can't help and visit the odd theater. It doesn't matter if it's a single screen or humongous multiplex, as long as it has some "specialty value" I like to see a movie in there. But even then, the movie needs to be at least borderline appealing. Going to the movies is still a night out for me and usually is good fun. Even if the movie turns out not being all that great, being together with friends and sharing such an experience is good time for me. But as I said, there needs to be something in there to go see that movie. Now, this year has been an absolute low for me, ever since I started to go see movies on a regular basis. People tend to claim that it is, because I'm getting older... There might be something in there, but it's more than that. Neither me nor my buddies are simply inclined to see new movies, because the premise of most of what was released this year bored them to death. "It's all the same anyway. It's like you're watching the same movie, just with a different cast over and over again." That's the actual argument right now not to see a particular movie. It's also harder to motivate other people to go see a movie. "All the same boring stuff." So, that's why I visited a commercial movie theater just 6 times this year as a patron, down from like 60 times or so last year... In effect, local cinema businesses had almost no revenue from us up until now and we're generally pretty OK spenders, we don't cheap out on concessions... So, instead of going to the movies, we end up doing other stuff, like visiting a bar or trying out a new restaurant. Personally, I consider this to be a sad development. I rather watch a movie in a proper cinema. But I think, we all could see it coming. I remember having such discussions here on this very forum a few years ago. If Hollywood keeps churning out the same templated contraptions time and time again, there will be a moment when people just stop showing up. Maybe that time has come... For me, at least, that reality set in somewhere at the end of last year.  |  IP: Logged Dave Bird Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 777 From: Perth, Ontario, Canada Registered: Jun 2000 posted 10-30-2019 10:17 AM                        We're likely not a great comparison, we've found that people don't care so much what's playing at the drive-in, they may even prefer the endless recycled action stuff. But we're also the only one and drivable to a fair-sized population. Any year that's dominated by Disney will be a good one for us. I do however recall when we were being offered a small theatre/bowling alley in a rural town. I combed North America Rentrak numbers for any situation I could find that was more "impossible" but still making a go, or even thriving. Tiffany Theatre in Broken Bow Nebraska was one that stood out. Tiny town, new build (older building repurposed). It didn't make sense for us in the end, but I did learn some things from their story (as well as being a life-long small-towner myself) that we've applied to our drive-in: Small-town folks will drive to the city if you're offering fewer playdates and/or older titles. Movies seem to be an impulse thing, and most won't go too often, so they'll pay more to see the new titles. With kids/family/school activities happening all week long, a free night could be any night. We're also up against so many forms of entertainment and activities now. Nobody seems to want to bowl or play tennis anymore, but they'll go to a sports bar and play bocce or pickleball. Kind of the same thing right? I like to think that these new things "rhyme" with the old, they've just updated it. How to update the classic downtown picture show? I'm not sure. I'm starting to know how to manage our particular venue, but we have the advantage of being the only drive-in left. I think you've asked the right people, there are plenty of kind folk here who know how it's done. My guess is newer films and to try a few more dates. I agree with what folks have said about admission prices, we've found cheap prices draw cheapskates and don't support the business.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-30-2019 10:36 AM                        We're a single screen arthouse - and a non-profit - , so comparisons are difficult, but yes, off the damn cliff. We've been running the theatre since 1983, I've been here since 1985. We are also the longest continually operating movie theatre in Alabama (since 1941) The last five years have seen a steep decline in attendance. In the last 10 years we have bought the building, converted to digital, did an almost million dollar remodeling, and replaced the seats, all of it on fundraised money. Starting a new capital campaign to redo the marquee and front of the building (and to pay off the lingering debt of the remodeling). Obviously, there is support here for the idea of a theatre. But getting them out of their houses to actually attend is a whole other story. Our audience is very old (a problem among almost all art groups). Getting younger people (in their 40's) is tough as they weren't raised in the same movie going culture as our current audience. This year we've been adding in more one-off special screenings and more concerts to bring in different audiences (and in the concert case, sell a damn lot of beer). It has kept us afloat, but it has not solved the problem. Most of the major distributors are no help, and I will leave it at that. I'm too old to quit, so it's a matter of trying to hold on and keep trying until something happens. If I were 20 years younger, I'd say find someone else to spend their life doing this.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-30-2019 12:35 PM                        Agreed with Marcel that the movies to come out of Hollywood this year have been abysmal. The Tarantino pic is the only one I've had even the slightest desire to see. That having been said, could Melanie's dropoff in business be explained by factors in the local economy as well as bad movies? In a small town that is a significant distance from anywhere else (thereby making it difficult for people to come to your theater from out of town), whether jobs have been lost or added, shifts in median salary, that sort of stuff, could have a big impact, I'd have thought. It would be interesting to know if Melanie's direct competitors for out-of-the-house entertainment (e.g. bars and restaurants) have seen a similar fall in business. If they have, this would suggest that the challenge is to persuade people to get themselves out of the house again. If they haven't, this would support the theory that bad movies is the main problem.  |  IP: Logged Ed Gordon Film Handler Posts: 31 From: Mountlake Terrace, WA, USA Registered: May 2019 posted 10-30-2019 06:28 PM                     quote: Leo Enticknap Agreed with Marcel that the movies to come out of Hollywood this year have been abysmal... In addition to that, consider how much more difficult it is for the few independent exhibitors left to get quality content. And then there is the horrible political environment that generates nothing but bad news. Who wants to go out to anything (other than a Happy Hour perhaps)?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-30-2019 07:32 PM                        quote: Ed Gordon And then there is the horrible political environment that generates nothing but bad news. Who wants to go out to anything (other than a Happy Hour perhaps)? All the more reason to switch off the TV and get out of the damn house. (Although we are a red county in a red state so it's not exactly a horrible political environment here -- the media just makes it seem that way.)  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-30-2019 10:52 PM                        Trying hard to avoid straying into forbidden territory here, but the politics is part of this problem. It's trying to become a form of entertainment, and doing so by becoming ever more extremist and polarized. CNN and Facebook are doing battle with Fox and Breitbart; and because so much of this plays out hunched over a smartphone or staring at a living room TV, it's another disincentive to get out of the house and interact with people who likely spend less than ten minutes of their day thinking about politics. As in, going to see a movie. Furthermore, during those ten minutes, they think that they want politicians who will just make the nuts and bolts of government work, not the posturing morons that dominate both sides of the aisle at present. One independent theater owner I was chatting to recently suggested that if you can't beat 'em, why not join 'em, and live stream political event coverage in his theater. He speculated, not unreasonably, that this could draw a bigger crowd than the umpteenth CGI-laden comic book adaptation. My response was that the fallout from those who opposed the event being streamed could be a problem. Movie theaters have been around for about 110 years, and I don't think they're going to go away any time soon. But symptomatic of the problem we're facing is that the Hollywood establishment sneeringly calls anything they don't make or sell "alternative content." Unless Hollywood figures out how to make movies that people are willing to pay to see once more and pretty soon, Hollywood's output risks becoming the "alternative content" to other mainstreams, IMHO.  |  IP: Logged Adam Fraser Master Film Handler Posts: 499 From: Houghton Lake, MI, USA Registered: Dec 2001 posted 10-31-2019 04:25 PM                        We are up 6% over last year, but down probably over 20% in admissions since the late 90's. I see far fewer teens and young adults coming in, especially the large groups of 12-16 year olds on "group dates". While they were annoying and needed constant supervision, they did spend a lot of money nearly every week. We seem to be seeing an increase in attendance among 50+ year olds, and a huge drop in people attending late shows. Over the last 5 years we went from 100+ late shows per year to less than 10. When there are only 10-20 people showing up for the 9:30 show, it is hard to justify getting home at 1-2 AM. The glut of superhero films also is wearing out its welcome here. The first Spiderman had people lined up around the building to the point we had to turn away people nearly every night of the opening week. Now, even though these newer Superhero movies open up at $200M+, our best weeks are 1500-2000 patrons, when they were 3000-3500 patrons with Spiderman, MIB, etc. Overall we are doing good, but with the demographic shift there could be trouble ahead in 10 or so years when today's teens should be our primary movie goers.  |  IP: Logged Mike Croaro Master Film Handler Posts: 394 From: Millbrae, CA Registered: Apr 2005 posted 10-31-2019 05:00 PM                     When movies were shorter, the "late show" was typically between 9:15 and 9:30. With movies being so long these day, it pushes that late show to 10:00 or even 10:15. Thus older people stop attending the late show.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 10-31-2019 05:36 PM                        Movies don't have the excitement and anticipation that used to surround them any more. Maybe there's just too much competition for people's attention today than there was twenty or even ten years ago. Remember the buzz around the first Toy Story movie, for example? Nothing close to that is around the latest Frozen movie. Sure, there are people wanting to see it but it isn't the same. I live in my theatre like the Phantom of the Opera. I have an apartment behind the screen, which has a lot of advantages in terms of cost. One power bill, one water bill, one property tax bill, etc. And when I'm waiting for the Pepsi delivery or the plumber those guys know to ring the doorbell when they get here so it's very convenient that way as well. And I have no staff. No worries about if someone is going to show up for their shift, no concerns about theft or someone getting hurt on the job or over- or under-charging the customers. And if there is a night where nobody comes to the show (which is fairly rare but does occasionally happen) I just lock the door and switch the lights off and I'm not really out anything. I also don't take any credit or debit cards, so I don't have to pay the fees and deal with the hassle associated with that. People around here know to bring money when coming to the show, new customers find out pretty quickly. Equipment and maintenance costs for digital cinema are awfully high, and the movie companies take a bigger bite of the ticket revenue than they used to. I'm definitely paying far more today than it ever cost me when I was showing movies on film.  |  IP: Logged Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 10-31-2019 05:39 PM                        I tried to send this to you directly, but the forum software said that sending you messages was blocked. Maybe others will have feedback on my ideas, and discount any that have been tried and failed. Here are a few things that I observed after reading the messages here, and looking at your web site and social media. Here is our entry for your theater: https://www.bigscreen.com/Marquee.php?theater=8711 I looked at our statistics for your theater, and in the last 4 weeks, you've had 527 views to your theater's information on our site. This is a close second to your nearest theater (CEC Theatres - Norfolk 7 Theatre). If we go further back in time (90 days), the gap widens a little bit. This is largely due to a marked increase in visits to your theater's information on our site beginning September 1st. (Traffic increased by 2.5x) Returning to your web site, I noticed a few issues that you may want to consider: 1) The "Buy Tickets Online" ticket is not obviously a link. I didn't realize that it was a link until after looking at it several times, because I didn't read the text on the ticket. I just figured it was a generic movie ticket graphic being used for decoration. That might be just my user error, but something to consider. 2) The "NOW SHOWING" text is a link offsite (IMDb). Likewise, the "About Movie" link is also going offsite. That means that the most important information on the page (your showtimes) is sandwiched between links that don't benefit you (the IMDb doesn't integrate your theater's info anywhere). The primary visual element is the embedded movie trailer, which is great, but it further minimizes your primary information. Something to consider for your movie information link, is to use our Shareable Links page, which provides your customers with information about the movie, but it also directs them to your showtimes if they click on the Showtimes link on our site afterward: https://www.bigscreen.com/Marquee.php?theater=8711&view=sharelinks For example, the relevant link for Abominable is: https://www.bigscreen.com/NowShowing.php?movie=304548&view=info&zip=68787&lat=42.2314756&long=-97.0178065 You will see that your theater's location is included in that URL, which is what gets them to your showtimes (if they don't return to your site). We also have links to your web site, Facebook page, and Twitter feed, which also helps to keep the attention of your customers, instead of losing them to the IMDb, which doesn't have any of that which benefits you. 3) The links to Facebook do not function. They lead the visitor either nowhere (the link in the grey bar below your supporters section), or to Facebook's main page (link that is at the bottom of page). 4) Your Twitter feed hasn't been updated since Feb 25, 2018. Before that single post, the most recent was Dec 10, 2015. Those factors make your Twitter feed an unhelpful resource for your theater, and anything that doesn't help, detracts from what you are trying to do. If you want to maintain it, then I suggest posting messages at least once daily. Otherwise, I recommend removing it from Twitter and the links from your site. 5) The Twitter link in the grey bar on your site would need to be fixed or removed, as it does not function. Is this section intended for embedded social media modules? I hope that you find a formula that works for your theater. I see the phenomenon so often when I'm writing articles about theaters closing, where people will be interviewed and they are sad that the theater is going away, but the reason the theater is going away is due to low attendance. Sometimes, this is due to a theater owner not investing back into the theater, so the seats have gone downhill, the bathrooms are sketchy, and the overall moviegoing experience isn't what it should be. However, I think more often is that people take the theater for granted, and they like the /idea/ of the theater, but they don't think to patronize the theater. It sounds as though this latter scenario is what you're up against. Is there some way to get more community buy-in? Are there things that you can do that are unique to your community that people would respond to? I see that you have a tie-in with the Dairy Queen, and that's good. Are there opportunities with your local high school and elementary school, where you could work with them to build more awareness and goodwill? Presenting at career day, providing tours to school groups, and working with the school district to hold events at the theater are just some things off the top of my head. Have you ever tried to introduce movies before the show? This requires a certain personality to do well, I think, but getting down in front of the screen and doing a little intro may generate some goodwill and it's a unique thing to your theater that they wouldn't get from other theaters or by staying at home (except if they watch Turner Classic Movies). If the movie you're playing has any giveaway items (T-shirts or other swag), you could give them away before the show.  |  IP: Logged

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