Sneaking in Candy

[David Bird]

Ultimately, I always thought the lack of understanding comes down to the vast majority of people do not operate or have any experience in a retail or restaurant type business. They are mostly consumers conditioned to seek the lowest price on everything they buy and have no concept on why the theatre needs to sell the entire "basket" just like a grocery store or restaurant must. There would be many other business types which this applies to, but it's hard to make the connection when it doesn't involve food, something we buy every week. We're mostly fortunate, a rural drive-in that serves the nearby metropolitan area. Those patrons from the city can't believe how "cheap" our concessions are, even though they're damn close to city prices. I generally defend the city indoors if they want to have a conversation on it, starting with 70+% film rent meaning essentially no profit on tickets, then we talk about the big new beautiful buildings sitting empty all day, financing, staff, utilities, all basically hoping they can sell a certain portion of the crowd some $8 popcorn, which of course has nowhere near that in cost. Preaching to the choir here of course.

[Eric Thuemmel]

In Michigan we were shut down again from mid-November until Christmas. Now we're allowed to once again re-open, but concessions are not to be sold or consumed on site. Because apparently pulling down your mask to eat popcorn in an auditorium that is no more than 20% full (by current restrictions) is much more dangerous than leaving your mask up for the whole show. Financially and for other reasons we're staying closed until we can open our concessions again. I can imagine the amount of candy being snuck in at theaters that are open!

[Mark Lane]

Eric Thuemmel, we are in Michigan too. We are not showing movies to the public but open the concessions for take-out orders. People can gather in the small lobby to buy popcorn to take home with them but it is to dangerous to set down and eat in a near empty auditorium.
Food service is limited to curbside and take-out so we have shut down the theater part and are now just offering concessions. We would not be able to make it by just showing the movie without concessions, so the auditorium remains closed. I don't want people to get use to the idea of bring in their own food.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

For the longest time we have known that the concessions are the bread and butter of this business. Why then is doing only concessions, even if takeout, not a good idea?

Orders taken on the phone or internet reduce contact possibilities.

Curb side delivery can be done to limit contact between staff and customers.

Limited number of employees are required to pull this off.

The fact that people want theatre concessions and are willing to patronize your theatre concession stand shows
that the community desires to keep you around after the dust settles.

Nothing says "out of business" like a dark marquee and locked doors into a dark building.

[Mike Blakesley]

We ran the curbside popcorn for about 2 months at the beginning of the pandemic. It went great guns for a while -- increases every week for the first four or five weeks. Then the novelty wore off and sales tanked. By the end of the second month we were about 1/4 where we were at the peak. Then we re-opened with classics and life since then has been normal-ish -- fewer people than we're used to, but normal otherwise except for the masks and the distancing (which is a gigantic pain in the tush).

The one positive effect it had was, it has created a bunch of new "walk in" customers who now stop by to get popcorn, who used to think you had to buy a ticket to get inside.

As for the marquee - we never turned it off the whole time we were closed. I made sure never to include the word "Closed" on our marquee. Instead I put up light-hearted messages that helped people have a sense of humor about the situation. "There will be a brief intermission" or "Now playing..... HOME ALONE" or "Coronapocalypse Now - Movies Soon."

There is a theater near us that is the opposite of us. They have been shut since last March, despite the fact that in Montana theaters have been allowed open since May. Their marquee says "Temporarily closed" and they still have the posters up from the last movie they showed before the closure! And no lights on anywhere whatsoever. Even their phone recording has no explanation of their extended closure and their website has not been updated since the middle of April. It looks like an abandoned building. I'm sure they'll reopen at some point -- if their projector works.

[Eric Thuemmel]

We're selling concessions, and have the marquee on at night, just not showing films for now. Since we're downtown having the lights on is a type of "beacon of hope."

The closed/open/closed again/open again scenario that is happening in Michigan is killing momentum - people were finally feeling safe in our auditoriums again this fall, seeing all of the distancing and cleaning precautions that were in place, and now that we had to close again, even when we do re-open it's going to take some time to build trust again.

[Jesse Skeen]

In 1989 the AMC Kabuki in San Francisco broke the area's price barrier when they raised admission to $6.50. The Chronicle printed many negative comments about it- one of which was "For $3 or so, I'll pick up my trash, and I might even pick up anyone else's that I see. For $5, I'm leaving it on the floor. For $6.50, I'm bringing in trash from outside!"