National Cinema Day?? WTF???

[John Eickhof]

simplex type r.jpg Phil, my former tech who is temp in Florida running Op in 5/70 told me that all shows on all 24 screens at the Cinemark 24 he's at are charging $4.00 ALL SEATS including the 70mm run today in observance of 'National Cinema Day'? He said it appears to be nationwide? Aree there any indies doing this? I have never heard of this...anyone else?

[Carsten Kurz]

This year second time in the US. Many countries introduced a similar event after Covid-19.

https://www.cabletv.com/news/national-cinema-day-2023

[Marcel Birgelen]

Belgium has had a similar event, sponsored by a big bank for years before COVID-19 and not just one day, but three days in a row, usually in September. It includes all major cinemas and also a bunch of indies.

It usually also features a few pre-releases and has been a highly popular event ever since.

The bank foots the bill for the sponsored ticket and gets a lot of "free" advertising in return. All in all, not really a bad deal and it usually draws in massive crowds. Maybe a concept worth replicating?

[Dennis Benjamin]

From what I am seeing, National Cinema Day was a bust. I think that having it on a Sunday versus a Saturday (Like last year) was a mistake.

[Jon Dent]

They also picked a bad weekend. Only new feature of note was Gran Turismo, and it's not exactly setting the world on fire.

[Mike Blakesley]

From what I am seeing, National Cinema Day was a bust. I think that having it on a Sunday versus a Saturday (Like last year) was a mistake.

No it wasn't... see the following article from Deadline:

National Cinema Day 2023 Draws 8.5M Admissions, +5% Over 2022 After ‘Gran Turismo’ & ‘Barbie’ Drag-Out Fight – Early Look

By Anthony D'Alessandro

National Cinema Day did 8.5 million admissions we hear off of a Sunday total day box office that’s estimated around $34M. All tickets for all movies and showtimes were $4 vs. last year’s $3. Note this figure could go up later today once final numbers are tabulated.

Last year’s National Cinema Day drew 8.1M. The exhibitor celebratory day to get people back in seats fell on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend last year. The whole gist behind National Cinema Day was to drive people to movie theaters in order to shake off their COVID jitters and to drive attendance to movie houses when there was no product in them. This year was different: A lot of tentpoles with Warner Bros.’ sixth weekend of Barbie at $15.1M warring with Sony’s first wide weekend of Gran Turismo ($17.4M) after the latter included nine days of advance sneak previews in their opening Friday.

As we told you earlier, Barbie beat Gran Turismo in admissions on Sunday, 1.42M to 1.17M. Warners was projecting that they’d do 1.937M on Barbie yesterday.

Both pics’ saw surges in their Sunday box office over Saturday due to National Cinema Day: Barbie‘s at $5.7M, +6%; Gran Turismo‘s at $4.7M, +15%.

We’ll have more updates on National Cinema Day as they come.

(Mike again) There is a lot to consider when judging whether NCD was successful or not. The theaters AND the studios are giving up their profit for the movie on that day, so they're not going to want to have it on the opening Saturday of a big new movie. Hence the late-summer Sunday. The other thing about last year was, it was on Labor Day weekend, generally not a good moviegoing weekend anyway, so Saturday was the better fit last year to ensure a great "first year" for NCD.

And, the idea is not to promote one huge new movie; the idea is to have it on a weekend where there is a good variety of movies to choose from. Hence this weekend, with a new opening (Gran Turismo) and Barbie and Oppenheimer still hanging in there, among others.

Compared to last year, this year's day did more business than last year and the grosses for the top movies increased over the previous Saturday, even though there wasn't a brand new blockbuster hit to draw people in, so I'd call that a success.

Here, we participated but we didn't make a big deal out of it because we were showing Oppenheimer (rated R) so we didn't want to promote it and then have a bunch of young people unable to come due to the rating. Still, people were delighted. I had a couple of phone calls thinking there was a problem with our online ticket sales pricing.

[Martin McCaffery]

We didn't participate, but we did get one call about it. AMC was participating, all seats in all screens were $4.00.

[Jon Dent]

We participated and might have seen a slight uptick, but we're playing Turismo and Meg 2, so it still wasn't stellar. Although the bump in concession sales was nice.

[John Eickhof]

Thanks for enlightening me! I have been out of the exhibition biz for a while, our only local 2 screen in Twin Falls indie did ncd, he said it was ok, he did not promote it much as he too is running op and another art film...he runs mostly art and obscure titles tho...we will see if it goes to a third year?

[Mike Blakesley]

Well with several of the high leadership positions at NATO having either resigned or been fired lately, anything could happen. The organization is morphing, not sure into what, yet.

[John Eickhof]

Mike, i'm wondering how they convinced the distribs to go along with it too? You know they don't normally allow discounted shows...but NATO could have set it up so the distrbs thought it was their idea!

[Mike Blakesley]

There was talk about it during one of the panel discussions at CinemaCon last April. I think the distribs were on board because it was an idea to help get people back into the theatres post-pandemic. Since both sides were giving up the lions share of the profit on the movie for that day, they went with it -- but the studios at the discussion felt like it benefited the theaters more than the studios, since the theaters get to keep the increased concession sales. I'm sure NATO's point to the studios was, "Let's help keep these people in business so they can continue to provide you with film rent (and promote your streaming services) going into the future." Some studios fully embraced it, while others sort of just said "ok, whatever."

[Leo Enticknap]

National Cinema day appears to have been a riot in one Inland Empire city! We went to a movie in another, and although the theater and the surrounding mall was very busy, there was no sign of any trouble, thankfully.

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's always sad if such stuff happens. Unfortunately, something like this has the potential to invite the wrong crowd into your establishment, which will have a lasting stain on your business.

For example, we've stopped to go to most horror movies as me and the wife have had some pretty bad experiences with rowdy teens and general bad folks in the past and it always happened with horror movies. Those movies apparently tend to attract a type of crowd that's not compatible with the way we like to see movies...

[Frank Angel]

Did they produce 1-Sheets for this "special" day for the lobby? A video trailer for the screen?