If I Ran The Movies

I see a lot of movies in theatres.  I’ll go with friends, family or by myself.  I see blockbusters and independent films although I hover in the Upper West Side most of the time, as I wrote in Aquarium Drunkard.  Continuing the conversation that’s been happening over at AVC and which I commented on, I’m an active user of the movie theatre.

I believe firmly that the flat rate pricing that movie theatres employ leaves a tremendous amount of money on the table and that, relative to opportunity cost and only slightly more sophisticated pricing schema, the theatres actually lost money on major tentpoles like ‘The Dark Knight’.  Even though The Dark Knight made billions for Warners and I respect that, I think the exhibitioners missed an opportunity as they’ll miss an opportunity this weekend with Harry Potter, as they missed an opportunity with Transformers, etc.

Put simply, they’re not doing enough to cater to active users like me.  They don’t understand that, relative to going out and getting wasted, I actually don’t view a $30-40 investment at the movies as particularly onerous and I believe there are others like me who are either fanboys or just really into movie-going (ed note: you mean nerds, right?).  And my point is that I’d pay more for any number of amenities that nobody is offering me.

First and foremost, if you haven’t seen a movie at the Arclight in LA, you really really need to.  Because that is a movie experience that I’d happily pay a premium for.

First and even more foremost.  Dude.  We need reserved seating.  Having to get to the movies 45 minutes early to scuffle with loud old people and families that are using their umbrellas and jackets to “save” 5 seats in a row is ridiculous.  Time is money.  Just like it doesn’t mean anything that Shakespeare in the Park is “free” (of course it’s not free, it’s targeted at people that have all day to wait in line, isn’t all that fucking hassle worth something? the rest of us have jobs for chrissakes, anyway, I digress), it shouldn’t necessarily be an advantage for someone to get there very early.  At the Arclight, you reserve your seat online.  That is the way to do it.  The only way to do it.  And, while I don’t think they charge you for that priviledge there, I’d pay a couple bucks for the option if I had to.  Then I can just roll up 5 minutes before and all is good.

So Rule #1 is reserved seating

The second rule is that (f-ing obviously) movie theatres should charge more for opening night than a normal night or they should give special people (gold club, AMC Moviewatchers, whatever) the right to cut to the front of the line if they pay for a special ticket that is 25-50-100% more expensive or more.  They should, essentially, create a secondary market for high-demand tentpole movies that people are willing to pay more for either for the convenience or because they just have to see it on opening night.

I would have easily paid $50 to see Dark Knight on the opening Friday night if I knew I could skip ahead of all the other people in line, popcorn in hand and grab my preferred reserved seat.

So Rule #2 is variable pricing for high-demand features

I don’t have that many other rules.  Beyond these first two, you could make an argument for more comfortable seating, better concessions, etc. but that is easy to say and I’m not sure I think it’s a good use of capital at this point.  Spending millions of dollars to upgrade the quality of the seats is perhaps not such a wise investment at this point for the exhibitioners.  Too much volatility and uncertainty in the business.

But I do think that both of these first two rules flow from a guiding principle.  And that guiding principle is: do more to cater to your active users

Final thought: Cross-product marketing also seems like a lost opportunity.  The problem here is the rev/share (I assume) between the studios and the exhibitioners.  The relationship seems kind of messed up from my perspective and I’m sure the exhibitioners feel the same way.  Probably the same way that Tower Records felt about Sony or EMI.  At any rate, I would also suggest taking a page from the Ticketmaster playbook (did I just write that?) and bundling other media products into the purchase of a more expensive movie ticket.  This could include physical product like actual DVDs, ironic T-shirts, etc. and it could include digital product like download codes to special soundtrack songs, short-films, or behind-the-scenes featurettes with the cast and crew of the film.  There seems to be a missed opportunity to relate all of the marketing and merchandising for a given film at the point-of-sale and at the point-of-richest-experience which walking into or out of that magical dark cool room where the mystery is projected onto the silver screen.

And if you’re wondering, I did send these ideas to AMC and got a form letter back.  So there you have it.  It’s not my fault if they want to keep leaving money on the table.

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