Announcement

**Mike Blakesley** · 03-13-2022, 12:23 PM

We've used Clark Film Buying since 1999. I have found that even with having a booker, quite often you will not know what you're playing on Friday until the Monday of that week. This is because studios don't always know how many prints they're going to have, or how many theaters are coming off, etc. until the last minute. It is a ridiculous antiquated thing that they are holding onto. The other big wild card is required play time -- almost any movie that requires 3 or 4 weeks gets an automatic no from us, unless it's a certified guaranteed blockbuster.

We always publish our schedule for the upcoming four weeks on our website but I have "Subject to change" over any listings that I'm not sure about. You will usually have a pretty good idea (or your booker will advise you) what movies are the most likely to play... for example, when the Top Gun movie gets closer, I'll put it on our schedule even though it's still not confirmed -- the chances are 99.9% we'll play it on the break. But I'll still put "Subject to change" until I'm 100% sure.

**James Wyrembelski** · 03-13-2022, 03:18 PM

I've used Cooperative Theatres since opening and can say the same as Mike. We usually don't know exactly what we are playing until Monday. Sometimes we do get notices ahead of time. There are films that are a dead given that we'll get and they'll be booked a couple weeks ahead of time. But 80 to 90% of the time we don't get confirmations until Friday or Monday before opening. Last I talked to our booker he pretty much had most of the spring and summer laid out and penciled in what we'll want to play. I usually make a post online of what we expect to come in the approaching weeks (with no guarantees). Same as Mike with the website. Everything is always essentially tentative, but gives people an idea of what we're eyeing to show.

It really is archaic at this point.

**Frank Cox** · 03-13-2022, 03:32 PM

I've had two or three occasions where a movie was downloaded to my Cinesend device before I actually had a confirmed date to play it.

**Jon Leyden** · 03-13-2022, 04:12 PM

Wow, okay that makes me feel a lot better! Still stressful, but good to know this is something that's expected and not something we're doing wrong. Agreed, very archaic and puts a lot of pressure on independents/singles/twins.

Are any of you selling pre-sales to movies 2+ weeks in advance, or is it only a preliminary schedule that you're advertising?

**Mike Blakesley** · 03-13-2022, 10:54 PM

Only the schedule. We don't put anything on sale until we have a confirmed booking. For one thing, often your contract will tell you you can't put tickets on sale before a certain date; but beyond that, you could run into a last minute thing like the studio doesn't have a print to cover you, or they decide they want four weeks instead of two, so you decide not to play the movie...but if you already have it on sale, you may wind up having to do refunds and such. So it's best not to put a movie on sale until you have a confirmed booking and a go-ahead from the studio.

**Darin Steffl** · 03-14-2022, 01:21 AM

I bought a single screen in March of 2020. The previous owners used a single person broker who was well liked by the previous people but she was rude with me and old school with no website. Everything was archaic the way she did it. I'm a modern guy and needed a better solution. I googled around and found Clark Film Buying and filled out the form on their website. I ended up talking with Ken Kruse there and I was sold. They have a great website that shows all our confirmed and tentative bookings as well as past films we showed with grosses. They have all the film cos payment info and you get access to Silver Screen Insider for free as a customer. I'm thoroughly impressed compared to the short amount of time we dealt with the old broker our theatre used. I highly recommend Ken at Clark Film Buying who has been a great resource for me as a new theatre owner. I've learned a ton from him on how this industry works and am glad I don't have to deal with studio reps direct. A broker saves me hours of time each month.

I can second some of the other comments that movies are subject to change, especially over the last 12 months during Covid. Now that we're getting out of winter and movies are changing less often, our tentative schedule is very close to our actual bookings. I'm always told that studios have the final say what we show and for how long. So while we might plan on showing a new film for 2 weeks, if it does really well, the studios can make us hold it for 3 weeks which means we have to bump whatever movie we had scheduled. I hate how little control we have over what we can show but our hands are tied as a single.

https://clarkfilmbuying.com/

**James Wyrembelski** · 03-14-2022, 10:29 AM

Originally posted by Jon Leyden View Post

Are any of you selling pre-sales to movies 2+ weeks in advance, or is it only a preliminary schedule that you're advertising?

It would depend on the film. We had the option of pre selling tickets for Batman in advance as we pretty much had the booking in place before we opened Uncharted on the break, even had the advance paid paid up before that as well. But generally that's only for the large blockbuster releases that anyone can get if they want it. Our booker will send us pre sale information for upcoming films we're getting if we have the option of advance ticket sales. I've never had them send that info and end up having the film change at last minute. Not to say that couldn't happen, but it hasn't to us yet.

We really dont do advance tickets anyways. There's really no need to here and we still operate on essentially roll tickets. I don't want to keep track of all of that. Would probably do it if we had online/electronic ticketing though.

**Frank Cox** · 03-14-2022, 11:34 AM

I don't do advance tickets for many reasons. One of them is that it seem like you would need reserved seating to make it work; someone might buy two tickets and there's two seats available -- one over here and one way over there.

And since I only take cash payments nobody could order over the phone anyway.

When there's been a large group coming for a busy show I have occasionally tried roping off or putting signs on seats saying "reserved." It's never worked -- people just remove the rope or the signs and sit there anyway.

**Mike Blakesley** · 03-14-2022, 02:08 PM

We went to advance sales and reserved seats when we reopened post-pandemic. Our biggest problem was, since we had to block seats and rows for social distancing, we would have frequent "sell-outs" and some of our people drive in from 35 to 75 miles away and it was not fun to have to turn folks away.

Since we went to the reserved seats, the customers are generally happier and it makes our ticket line move faster, not to mention not having as much money in the till to deal with. As a bonus, we charge a small fee for the online transaction and we get to keep that money. The fee offsets our app cost and a good chunk of our credit card fees. And, it's very handy to have a pretty good idea what kind of crowd we're looking at before we open for the night.

The other nice thing is, with the assigned seats we are easily able to "shoe-horn" people in on a busy night. In the old system, they might walk in, decide there was "nowhere to sit" and come out asking for a refund.

There are some locals who miss the "old days" when they could just come in and sit where they want. But, they're becoming familiar with the setup and they like being able to guarantee the seats they prefer.

**Darin Steffl** · 03-14-2022, 02:32 PM

Mike, are you using Veezi for your tickets and reserved seating? If not, which system are you using?

What is your ticket pricing and what does the online convenience fee cost?

Thanks

**Marcel Birgelen** · 03-14-2022, 05:22 PM

Originally posted by Mike Blakesley View Post

There are some locals who miss the "old days" when they could just come in and sit where they want. But, they're becoming familiar with the setup and they like being able to guarantee the seats they prefer.

Maybe you can bring the "free seating" back for less busy days, like most weekdays? That's the way some single-screens over here operate. On weekends and special occasions it's all reserved seating and on slow days it's "free seating". Over the years I've become used to the reserved seating thing and I have come to mostly appreciate it. It takes the spontaneity out of a night to the cinema, but since the days of having 10 movies to choose from at the multiplex seem to be somewhat behind us, I guess reserved seating is here to stay.

**Mike Blakesley** · 03-14-2022, 11:36 PM

Mike, are you using Veezi for your tickets and reserved seating? If not, which system are you using?

What is your ticket pricing and what does the online convenience fee cost?

We use RTS. They have an app which is customized to your seating layout(s) and costs nothing but the transaction fee of 25 cents per transaction. So if somebody buys 4 or 5 tickets, it still only costs you 25 cents.

You can opt to absorb the fee, or you can pass it on in any amount you want -- you can do a per-ticket fee, or a per-transaction fee. We opted to pass it on -- we charge a $1 per transaction fee. So it's a very reasonable fee, but we do make a profit on it.

RTS keeps track of the fees and they only bill you when the fees reach an amount you set.... I think $100 is the default, or at least that's where ours is.

Our prices range from $6.00 to $8.75.

Maybe you can bring the "free seating" back for less busy days, like most weekdays? That's the way some single-screens over here operate.

We do that on nights when there are no pre-sold tickets. Probably happens a couple of nights a week, depending on the movie.

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