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National Cinema Day (USA)

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  • National Cinema Day (USA)

    I hope everyone has heard about National Cinema Day, an event being sponsored next Saturday (Sept. 3) by the Cinema Foundation. On that day, all movies, all showtimes, all formats will be priced at $3. All of the film studios are onboard with the event, and over 3000 locations representing over 30,000 screens are signed-up to participate.

    If you choose to take part, there are all sorts of assets (logos, web banners, social content, press release, etc.) in the Paper Airplane website, and there will be a 4 1/2 minute "sizzle reel" coming in next week's Trail Mix that is meant to be played on that day's shows ONLY. Haven't seen it yet but it's supposed to include bits from a lot of the upcoming movies.

    Cinema Foundation is aiming to make this an annual event, so we are definitely taking part in it. Hope we get big crowds!

    Here is an article about it from Variety, and there are a lot of other articles popping up too, so it should be a good event.


    U.S. Theaters Will Sell $3 Tickets for National Cinema Day Event, Set for Sept. 3

    While the excitement of the summer movie season is over, U.S. theaters are looking to reinvigorate interest in filmgoing with National Cinema Day, a one-day event that will see participating locations sell movie tickets for prices as low as three dollars.

    The Cinema Foundation, a non-profit branch of the National Association of Theatre Owners, announced the event on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. National Cinema Day will take place this Saturday, Sept. 3, at more than 3,000 theaters across the U.S., comprising 30,000 or so participating screens. For reference, there are about 40,700 theater screens in the country.

    “After this summer’s record-breaking return to cinemas, we wanted to do something to celebrate moviegoing,” Cinema Foundation president Jackie Brenneman said in a statement. “We’re doing it by offering a ‘thank you’ to the moviegoers that made this summer happen and by offering an extra enticement for those who haven’t made it back yet.”
    https://variety.com/2022/film/news/n...ts-1235352846/

  • #2
    We're doing it.

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    • #3
      We got the sizzle reel on our downloads yesterday so I took a look at it last night. I don't think we are going to play the reel, because about 95% of the movies featured in it will never see our screen anyway. But we are taking part in Cinema Day otherwise.

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      • #4
        Our tickets are normally $3.00 and $5.00 with the occasional discount day being $1.00. It is insulting that there has to be a special day to sell tickets for what we normally sell them for. We declined to participate.

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        • #5
          It is insulting that there has to be a special day to sell tickets for what we normally sell them for. We declined to participate.
          Why would you be "insulted" when the average ticket price in the country is around $8.50 and virtually everyone else is higher than you are? They aren't calling it "Cinema Discount Day," after all.

          I think anything that coaxes people into trying out a movie in a theater is a good thing, it might get some people into the habit of going again.

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          • #6
            As with any "discounted" show, about half of our crowd today's matinee was unaware of CInema Day and surprised at the low price.

            But they were all happy and smiling so that's the point!

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            • #7
              As a drive-in, we're not participating, however I do have a question regarding film rental in relation to National Cinema Day. Are the studios OK with film rental percentages being paid off of a $3 ticket as opposed to a normal priced ticket? That's a huge difference in film rental for them to take.

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              • #8
                Yes, we’re just reporting today on our BOR with all tickets at $3 and percentage paid on the sales as usual.

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                • #9
                  This is anecdotal, but from what I've seen on Twitter, National Cinema Day did a great job of reminding people why they should stay home to watch movies.

                  Lots of reports of talking, cell phones, and worse.


                  Twitter.png

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                  • #10
                    Part of the problem might have been the fact that the tickets were only $3. It devalued the product to a point where people didn't care.

                    I used to do a free admission show for our local Santa Claus day every December. It was a big yearly thing for a long time, then it just kind of died out a few years ago.

                    The first year I did it I decided give away free popcorn along with the movie. NEVER AGAIN. After the show I was cleaning up the popcorn with the grain shovel that I use to shovel snow. People were taking popcorn because it was free and not because they actually wanted popcorn so 99% of it ended up getting thrown on the floor.

                    If the audience behaviour during Cinema Day was a problem (as I guess it was in at least some places) I'm thinking that $3 is close enough to "free" that people didn't value the experience enough to behave.

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                    • #11
                      I hope the reports of bad behavior (and lack of enforcement) get back to NATO so they can put that in the thinking hopper for next year, if it's repeated. But yeah, anytime you give anything away free you run the risk of bad behavior. We had a civic group want to sponsor an unlimited-popcorn movie thing a few years ago. It was great for us because we charged them based on how many containers we used, but, just like at your place, most of it got spilled (or thrown) on the floor. We decided after that that no mater about the $$$, we were never doing "free" concessions again.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Geoff Jones View Post
                        This is anecdotal, but from what I've seen on Twitter, National Cinema Day did a great job of reminding people why they should stay home to watch movies.

                        Lots of reports of talking, cell phones, and worse.


                        Twitter.png
                        Once you "de-value" a product or service, the public has no respect for it. Owning a drive--in theatre we were encouraged by some other drive-in owners to do a "Last Weekend of the Season Carload Pricing" thing back in 2004. NEVER AGAIN.. In 19 years of owning the place the ONLY graffiti, broken fixtures, and random destructive behavior all came from the one weekend in 2004 we did "carload pricing". There must have been empty meth trailers for miles around, because they all showed up at the drive-in. We now try to have the highest drive-in ticket price in the area to weed out the riff-raff.

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                        • #13
                          "You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll kiss three bucks goodbye."

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Barry Floyd View Post
                            Once you "de-value" a product or service, the public has no respect for it. Owning a drive--in theatre we were encouraged by some other drive-in owners to do a "Last Weekend of the Season Carload Pricing" thing back in 2004. NEVER AGAIN.. In 19 years of owning the place the ONLY graffiti, broken fixtures, and random destructive behavior all came from the one weekend in 2004 we did "carload pricing". There must have been empty meth trailers for miles around, because they all showed up at the drive-in. We now try to have the highest drive-in ticket price in the area to weed out the riff-raff.
                            This reminds me of what I said after seeing a studio preview:

                            I would gladly pay say $25 for a movie ticket if the theater enforced no cell-phone rules via the use of Yondr sleeves or the like.

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