marketing a Single Screen

[Cheryl LIzzio]

We are a small single screen in a rural area(open since 1936). For years we would be packed for kids movies, like sold out. Ever since covid our attendance sucks. We advertise on FB and Instagram but we don't really have any local papers anymore or other outlets to advertise like bigger cities. Does anyone gave some ideas on what we can do to boost attendance. Our tickets are only $6 and we mostly show 1st run movies. I need ideas on how to get people to come here vs larger cities around us. Any ideas that you have used to help. i know streaming has hurt Theaters but i think there is still hope. Thank you

[Martin McCaffery]

There's no magic bullet. We're a single screen, non-profit art house. We've rolled back to 4 days a week (fri-mon) for our regular features (which lately have been pulling in about 30 people for 4 days).
We just restarted our children's matinees, which are primarily aimed at daycare centers, and they are doing horribly, but outgrossing out regular features
We've always had a little bit of repertory, now we are trying to expand it. Very hit and miss, but it does bring in new people. We showed Purple Rain last night, and it was the highest grossing screen in the area, for just one show.
I think he one piece of advice I hear over and over is Eventize Everything. It's time consuming and annoying, but it seems to work. The question is how long can you keep it fresh.

[Mike Blakesley]

It's not easy with the studios wanting you to play movies for a month and you have to miss out on some big ones. Although we missed out on Fast X but now I don't care, because it didn't do that great and Universal double-crossed exhibitors by sticking it on home video after 22 days.

About all I can offer are the common sense things -- make sure your place is nice and clean, and make sure your presentation is good. Make sure your staff is ultra friendly too. It's kind of funny, we have about 175 google reviews and the thing that gets the most mentions is our friendly staff.

[Frank Cox]

Make sure your bathrooms are clean.

It might be even more important than a good picture and sound.

I agree with the sentiment here, though. Attendance at my theatre fell off of a cliff during covid and it's never come back to anywhere near what it was before. I used to have quite a few regular customers who would come every week, or come to every action movie or every romance or whatever, and I don't seem to have those any more either.

I don't think there's a lot that you can do about it other than continue to provide a good product and hope people will come to appreciate that and want it again.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I think it's easier to run a small theater like single, duplex or anything up to a room or five nowadays than a multiplex. Honestly, what are you going to fill 10+ theaters with those days?

Covid has destroyed quite a few communities in ways that are only now becoming clear. I used to go regularly go to all kinds of events with friends, but that never regained the traction it had before Covid put all that on pause for 2 years+.

As far as my 2ct: Try to get to know your local community. The demographic you're serving and like Martin indicated, try to organize events around it. It really seems to work for most. Also, keep in mind your theater can be used for far more than just showing the latest movies...

[James Wyrembelski]

Same story here. Family films were the bread and butter and not really so much since covid. Mario being the exception.

I've found that the people keeping the doors open are the older crowd. Do they spend as much at the concession stand? No. But they come out in droves. Crawdads, Elvis, Otto, 80 for Brady, Ticket to Paradise, Top Gun etc. All had phenomenal attendance. Unfortunately there hasn't been much for that crowd since 80 for Brady and the rest of summer looks thin. For some reason Margaret and Book Club fell flat, even in locations that these types of films do really well in.

Not really sure what to do about the family films. I think inflation on essentials such as food has really hit hard combined with factors such as streaming availability. Lengthy play times in the age of shorter and shorter windows is really getting old as well. Near sell outs for the titles listed above and we're never sure if we can even get them and sometimes can't because "it's wide, but not that wide" . Yet I can get any major release for three weeks that sees no sell outs and tanks after week one.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I've found that the people keeping the doors open are the older crowd. Do they spend as much at the concession stand? No. But they come out in droves. Crawdads, Elvis, Otto, 80 for Brady, Ticket to Paradise, Top Gun etc. All had phenomenal attendance. Unfortunately there hasn't been much for that crowd since 80 for Brady and the rest of summer looks thin. For some reason Margaret and Book Club fell flat, even in locations that these types of films do really well in.

Unfortunately, it will take a while before Hollywood takes note... They can produce like 5 to 10 of those kind of movies for every "Ant-Man", "Flash" or "Indy 5" they put out there (maybe not Top Gun, but even that movie did cost about half of what Indy 5 supposedly costs to make). It would not only increase their dwindling bottom line, it would also greatly diversify the risk, by not putting all their eggs in a few baskets.

As for the concessions: Older crowds may have a different taste than the younger crowds, nothing wrong with asking what they would want to see on your menu and take it from there. Keep in mind that this older demographic usually has more cash to spend than the younger ones. I know that for some locations around here, adding beer and wine paid for the liquor license rather quickly.

[Armand Daiguillon]

We are a small single screen in a rural area(open since 1936). For years we would be packed for kids movies, like sold out. Ever since covid our attendance sucks. We advertise on FB and Instagram but we don't really have any local papers anymore or other outlets to advertise like bigger cities. Does anyone gave some ideas on what we can do to boost attendance. Our tickets are only $6 and we mostly show 1st run movies. I need ideas on how to get people to come here vs larger cities around us. Any ideas that you have used to help. i know streaming has hurt Theaters but i think there is still hope. Thank you

You asked about advertising - I'd suggest using EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail from the post office)
Cost is about $1500 per 5000 addresses. (for me that includes printing the flyers from VistaPrint and the cost of postage)
You select the postage routes online, you can target specific neighborhoods, etc and the post office will deliver it to each address on that postal route. The EDDM tool tells you exactly how many addresses are on each route.
Its easy, cost effective and it works.
Just make sure to include a decent coupon or two to get them in.

Hope that helps.

[Richard C. Wolfe]

While I visit Film-Tech several times a week and read many of the posts, I have not made a post myself for several years. However, this topic hits home. I have operated my single screen theatre for the past 53 years and during that time many things have changed dramatically in many different ways. Some for better, but more for the worse. I am in total agreement with what others have said about what has happened since Covid. While business is continuing to come back, it's certainly not what it use to be.

Advertising is one of the things that has changed greatly, not necessarily due to Covid , but to the new technologies that have come about over the last several decades. As some of you remember, there was a time not so long ago when every theatre advertised in newspapers, and now almost no one does. Now we rely on our web site, our internet newsletter, facebook, Instagram and the dozens of internet movie sites that we can list our titles and showtimes on. Probably 80%, if not higher, of our patrons use their cell phone to gain access to the information on those sites. There lies one of the problems. When someone goes to Google, Movephone etc, what do they see... the title, rating and showtimes, and that's it. There is no way to make your theatre stand out among the others. In the old days we were taught that ads should include the 4 Ws of advertising... What, Where, When and WHY? We now only get to list the first 3, but unable to list WHY which is the one that may bring patrons to your place rather then another one. How do you get to advertise that you have a nicer theatre, better parking, better picture and sound, more comfortable seating, lower prices for tickets or concessions etc.?

What can we do to get more people to come to our small town single screen theatres? One suggested direct mail and that might be a good idea if the cost isn't too out of reach. While my theatre did that many years ago (back in the 30s, 40s and 50s) I have never tried it. We still have a local weekly newspaper and I advertise in it every week and feel that it is still very important, as people do read it to get the local news that the big city daily doesn't cover. Don't under estimate the power of your marquee. In small towns, almost every one drives by it on a regular basis and makes a point to read it. Community involvement is of the utmost importance. Become involved in all that goes on in your community and make your theatre part of the activities of your town and region. Make your theatre available for various programming during hours when you aren't normally open. If you have a stage, it can be used for all sorts of shows and events. Don't be afraid to actually close on some nights to allow rentals during those hours as well. If you would normally sell $250.00 in movie tickets on a Thursday night, you may be able to rent the theatre for that amount or more and not have to share it with someone else. I have found that while I'm only doing 70% of the business that I was doing before Covid on movie admissions, my rentals for concerts, plays, operas, school programs, birthday parties etc. have more than filled the gap, and the bottom line is just as good as it was before Covid when I was doing mostly movies.

Don't give up. Keep trying. Continue to look for new ways to bring more income into your theatre. Don't think of yourself as being in the movie business, but rather in the Theatre business. There is so much more that can be done then just showing movies.

[Marcel Birgelen]

This may be a personal thing, but one thing that's often quite undervaluated IMHO is having a dedicated website about your theater. I know that many people will say that it's sufficient to be present on social media, but I personally despice Facebook and I'd rather visit your public website rather than trying to find my way around on some general social media pages.

A personal website is a much more intimate, direct way of communicating with your potential customers. Also, it's a great way of letting your customers know what you have to offer. Also, it's a great location for frequently asked questions: E.g., where can I park my car? What does a ticket cost? What does your place look like? For the technical geeks among us, a page about some technical information is always welcome. Also, I love to read a bit about the history of your place.

Maybe I'm an oddity, but I'm sure others will also look at this kind of information and for me it's a great motivator to choose one place above some generic big-brand multiplex.

[Frank Cox]

Coincidentally, I have just (as of yesterday) started doing a redesign of my website to make it look better on phones and tablets. According to the user agents in the server logs, almost all of the traffic to my website comes from either ios or android.

When I first made the website almost all of the traffic came from people's desktop computers but that has now changed. Apparently a lot of people don't even have a desktop computer any more.

My current website looks pretty good on a desktop but it wraps funny on a narrow screen.

So I've decided to fix that make my website look like my android app. It should still look ok on the (few) desktops that still view the site but it will fit the screens on phones a lot better than it does now and should be more readable.

I also have a qr code on my front window that takes you to my website. My current one is just printed on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper that's taped to the window but I'm considering having that "large format printing" outfit print me a movie poster sized qr code that I can put in the window along with the posters. My phone can scan my current qr code from about six or seven feet away so if I got a big one it could probably be scanned from across the street.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Do some booth tours? (We do them about 4 days of them during summer classic season to donors and guests, they absolutely love it, something like 80+ people each season). Yes it can be a bit distracting if you were behind getting content ready. LOL. If it is THE historic single screen theater in the town it is as much their theater as ours, find ways to make em feel even more connected to the space?

Our's however is mostly a live event space. We just do film in the summer and for special events.

They'll esp love it if you still have layers of generations of film equipment that is either used or disused to talk about.

[Mike Blakesley]

Another vote here for having a website.

And, if you have a marquee that looks nice, have it lit up even on the nights when you are closed. You don't have to leave it on all the time, just in the "prime drive time" for your street. This gives the impression that your place is active and "happening," as opposed to being dark and forlorn. During the pandemic, our marquee was lit up 100% of the nights, even during the weeks we were closed. Yes it cost some electricity but I'd rather the place look alive. It let people know that we were absolutely coming back.

[John Eickhof]

i agree with mike, in case you live far from your theatre, have a timer or photocell control wired in to turn on your sign and poster cases, it has been proven that business will improve even on less than seven day operations if the place looks alive! also, never turn down a customer! they may have driven a distance and to say 'go home' or we need 10 people to run the show or similar, will surely shorten your business life...

[Frank Cox]

I went ahead and had two copies of my qr code printed on 27x40 poster paper this afternoon. The job cost me $100 but I figured it'll be worth it if people can scan that code without having to get out of their cars as they drive by or park.

Put one into the front window, then went outside to test it.

Big disappointment. I can scan the big qr code from about two feet away but anything further back doesn't work because of glare on the window glass. So the big qr code turns out to be less useful than the small one that I printed myself on a sheet of letter-size paper since that one can be scanned from about six feet away.

Who'da thunk it?

Since it's obviously of little value, I took the big poster down again.

I never would have found that out without trying it so I guess it cost me $100 to learn something.

Shucks (and other appropriate remarks).