Adding a second screen

[Darin Steffl]

We're a single screen with 200 rocker seats today. I just bought the Theatre in March of 2020 before the Covid shutdown.

We've been reopened since Godzilla vs Kong in March 2021 but I HATE not being able to show all the big releases on opening day. For example, we had to choose between Sing 2 and Spider-Man so we chose Sing 2 knowing it would do a little better but I would have loved to show both on release day. We showed Spider-Man 4 weeks later but admissions weren't nearly as good as if we opened it.

The only way I see being able to show 95% of the big movies on open is for us to add a second screen. We have to use existing space to avoid needing fire alarms and sprinklers so that means we have two small spaces that can support 8 recliners or maybe 16 rockers. The main purpose of a second screen would be to show more new releases on opening day, not to add more seats.

Our movie broker said if the only goal is to show more movies, this would be a great way to spend some money. It should nearly double our attendance.

Has anyone here added a second screen and are you glad you made the choice? It looks like we'll have to spend about $60-70,000 all-in on a small second screen which is reasonable for what it can do for us.

Thoughts? Tips, tricks, and things to watch out for. Thank you!

[Frank Cox]

I just have one screen. This building used to be a paint and wallpaper store so when I bought it to make it into a theatre I designed it myself. Some stuff like the angle of the slope on the auditorium floor is copied from a theatre where used to work.

I suspect that sound is going to be one of your biggest challenges. When you have a rip-snorter playing on screen and a sappy romance playing on the other you don't want the gunshots and bomb blasts going off behind the big love scene. Also, consider sound leakage from the lobby. When you stagger the showtimes you'll have a bunch of people in the lobby doing the "Hi Joe, haven't seen you in a while, let's go get a beer" thing while there might be a quiet scene on the screen in the other auditorium.

It's my understanding that rafters are one of the main conductors of sound between auditoriums so when you have a common roof across the whole thing that's something to watch out for.

I doubt that you'll double your attendance. You'll definitely add to the attendance, but consider that even though you didn't play Spiderman on the break you still played it and the attendance wasn't zero. The extra fifty people you might get on the break is fifty extra people, but it's not double.

[Mike Blakesley]

You would not double your grosses, even if you had two equally-sized auditoriums. First, with 200 seats vs. 16 seats, it would be mathematically impossible. Our film booker (he's been in the business about 45 years) told me that if we added a second screen here, it would probably increase our grosses by about 40%. The reason being, movie #2 might take a little business away from movie #1, plus you're never guaranteed that there's an equally sized audience out there for any particular film.

A bigger concern is your proposed number of seats. You're going to have a really low gross potential with that few seats. If you make it 16 rockers, that's still not much unless you fill it up several times a day. It will be hard to sell all 16 seats, because you might have two or three families filling up, say, 13 seats, but then a group of 4 shows up and you'll have to turn them away because you only have 3 seats left.

The studios would probably also not be too happy with you if you move their #1 film from your 200-seat screen down to a 16- seat one, and if a film was still doing enough business to stay in the 200-seat screen, I think you would have a hard time getting another studio to sell you their new movie to open in the 16-seater. So you might wind up not playing too many more new movies than you do now.

I also question your cost numbers. Projection, sound, screen, carpentry, paint, wall coverings, carpeting, HVAC, lighting/electrical....you might wind up spending more than 70 grand just on the first two or three items.

Having said all of that, I think it would be great if you could move to two screens. I wish we had two screens here. But Frank's concerns about sound are very valid, along with the financial and booking concerns that I mentioned.

[Darin Steffl]

Our booker said we can move films between the screens so every new movie would open in our large auditorium but we can show different movies at 4 or 7 pm and move around as needed. No movie would stay only on one screen.

The intent is to have a new release open on our big screen for the majority of shows on week 1 and if we open another new release on week 2, the newest one gets the big screen for most times and the week 1 release gets fewer times on the big screen.

We're not considering this for more seats, only for more new releases on opening day which our broker is confident will help with that. We won't have to choose between Jurassic World and Lightyear if we add a second screen. We'll be able to open both on opening day with two screens. Same with Sing 2 and Spiderman which we could have opened on release if we had two screens.

It's a very small room so with 2k laser projectors for small screens starting around $25 to 30k, we should be able to DIY some other things to come in under $70k. Small speakers, small screen, etc. We'll see what quotes come back at.

[Martin McCaffery]

Construction costs have skyrocketed in the last year. You may want to put things off until that has all settled down.

[Rusty Gordon]

I had a 225 seat single screen and took over a small bldg next door and added a 72 seat screen. It was a good move, but few studios let me open new blockbusters in there on the break, and they'd never allow me to move two movies around like you suggest, alternating shows, while either was in the first couple of weeks.

[Andrew Thomas]

By license agreement, you typically can't switch the movies during the play week, even though it often makes sense to give something like a PG kids movie your largest room for the matinees and the PG-13/R movie the largest room for the evening shows. Disney also regularly has title specific requirements like their Marvel films having to stay on the largest screen for weeks 1 through 3.

Whether you want to honor those requirements and risk running afoul of a movie studio is a whole other thing.

[Jon Dent]

By license agreement, you typically can't switch the movies during the play week, even though it often makes sense to give something like a PG kids movie your largest room for the matinees and the PG-13/R movie the largest room for the evening shows. Disney also regularly has title specific requirements like their Marvel films having to stay on the largest screen for weeks 1 through 3.

Whether you want to honor those requirements and risk running afoul of a movie studio is a whole other thing.

That is one of the unspoken benefits of being a small single or dual screen: you tend to fly under the radar of the studios. Especially when you're not near a metro area

[Mark Lane]

We are a one screen theater. There are times when we are grateful we are not trying to fill a second screen.
There is a skill in booking movies. For us, adults who want to see a movie on opening night will find a theater that has the movie, but if they are taking their children, they can wait a couple of weeks. For us, Spiderman on opening night and Sing 2 a couple of weeks later would be the better play. For us booking the movie so we can tell people it is coming is almost as good as opening night. Most people will wait a week or two if they know we will have the movie.

Why are you going through a broker? Call your studio rep. They can do a lot more for you than a broker can. They can tell you how revenues from a 16 seat theater is going to be seen by the studio. If you are calling in tiny numbers, you are not going to get all the movies on the break you want. The studio has rankings.. your theater is ranked by the money you make for them. If a studio is releasing the movie in 3,000 screens, your 16 seat theater is not going to be ranked in the top 3,000.
Talk to your studio rep.. build a good relationship so they will fight for you. They can help you get the swag..shirts, hats, promos, even park passes. A good rep can give you advice on a second screen.

[Darin Steffl]

We don't plan on opening any movies on the small screen. All movies will show on our big screen then move to the small screen after the first or second week. That's the plan for most movies except Disney/Marvel as mentioned here and by our broker.

There is no way I would run a small Theatre without a broker. I don't have the time or desire to deal with studio reps when I can just pay my broker and have one point of contact. It's easy and saves me time. The Theatre is my hobby right now, not my primary business, so I need things to be simple.

[James Wyrembelski]

Mike and Frank are pretty spot on. If we were talking a 50+ seat addition, might be different.

Sound transfer and the studios wanting to play ball are a big issue. Would be nice if singles could work some type of system or deal out to be able to split even if it means paying extra. With shrinking windows and direct to streaming is the content we receive really that exclusive anymore?

And to the point about bookers, if you get the right one, are more than worth the check you write them every month.

[Mark Lane]

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[Stefan Scholz]

Try to make a fancy and "class lux" second room, which will fill up the capacity at an elevated price level even. I have seen this at a location I service. 16 seats, I would consider this a little too small to be commercially working. Our families home screening room in the 80s used to be 20 seats.
Plus, within one complex projection and sound should never have different levels of quality, to attract your patrons. I have often followed phone bookings, when the non announced screen number in the ad was asked for. " Is it #5 it's screening in? Yes. - Well, we'll wait for the DVD (stream,...)". So the addition has to offer the same quality, or as I suggest even outperform it by really comfy seats, like in aircraft first class plus the same technical screening quality. And then, buying an S2k projector (no contrast device) and using small speakers, 5.1 (4.0 or whatever) audio, vs. Immersive 4k high contrast will not be an option.
Even though I have to admit, regarding the sound, I've recently been to an old house of culture, which still featured the 1977 sound system and a rather simple electronic projection system next to the 1977 35 mm movie projectors, they do good business.

[Mike Blakesley]

Our booker said we can move films between the screens so every new movie would open in our large auditorium but we can show different movies at 4 or 7 pm and move around as needed. No movie would stay only on one screen.

As noted above, you can't always do that and stay in your contract terms. You have to follow the rules --- if you don't, you run the risk of them taking you off service. It happened to us once when we "stacked" two movies without asking. To this day, I don't know how the studio found out about it. For that, we got taken off service with that studio for six months and lost who knows how much money in sales, because they had a really good slate that year. So you bend the rules at your peril. IF YOUR BOOKER IS ENCOURAGING YOU TO BEND THE RULES, THAT IS A HUGE RED FLAG. Just think about it.... if you bend the rules and get stuck, your booker isn't going to deal with the lost revenue -- you are.

The intent is to have a new release open on our big screen for the majority of shows on week 1 and if we open another new release on week 2, the newest one gets the big screen for most times and the week 1 release gets fewer times on the big screen.

Take the example of Spider-Man and Sing 2. If we had a 16-seat second screen here, and we moved Spider-Man into that screen in order to open Sing 2 on the big main screen, we'd have lost a few thousand dollars in ticket sales. Disney would likely not book their next blockbuster with us for that reason, costing us untold money down the road.

Sometimes not opening on the break is an advantage. I think we did better with Sing 2 because we played it after Spider-Man and showed the trailer to all of those Spider-Man people. Plus families are not all that hyped to see a movie on the opening like superhero/franchise fans are. We had Sing 2 after all the Christmas hoopla was done. You don't need to open everything on the break to gross well.

[/quote]We're not considering this for more seats, only for more new releases on opening day which our broker is confident will help with that. We won't have to choose between Jurassic World and Lightyear if we add a second screen. We'll be able to open both on opening day with two screens. [/quote]

Using numbers that would make sense in my theatre, let's say your top ticket price is $10 and you gross $6000 on the first week of Jurassic. (600 tickets). Normally, you'll sell about half the tickets in week 2 as you did in week 1, so that would be 300 tickets. If you only have 16 seats to sell, you would have to have 19 shows (all sold out) over the second week to accommodate everyone. With that few seats you'll be turning people away (and making them mad in the process), and that's only if Universal gives you permission to move a $6000 movie over to a screen that's probably only going to be able to do about $1700 at best. They will be furious with you if you did that unauthorized. If the movie is tanking, then sure, go ahead and move it. But with a guaranteed hit, you're basically cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Some movies might do better business than that, and some will do less. You're in a town that's 4x the size of the town I'm in, and your county has 3x the population of the county I'm in, so I'd dare say you're going to sell more tickets than we would, so the numbers above are probably on the LOW end for you, unless you are running a bad theater. So for all of the above reasons, I would have serious second thoughts about a maximum of 16 seats for a second screen.

[Martin McCaffery]

To this day, I don't know how the studio found out about it

Last year we showed the National Theatre Live presentation of the play War Horse. Seems in 2011 Steven Spielberg made an adaptation of this play for the Mouse House. A week or so after we showed it, we got an email from the distributor asking us if we had cleared the film.
They are watching, always watching, everyone.