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Author Topic: Patrons per auditorium to offset ops costs Zach Zagar Film Handler Posts: 45 From: Jefferson City, MO Registered: Mar 2000 posted 09-14-2000 10:27 AM                        In regards to shutting off the Xenon bulb, I find, at least on the three lamphouses I've been fortunate enough to work on (Christie, Xetron and Strong/Simplex), that if you turn the Xenon breaker off after you've hit start, the meter keeps running. The way, I've personally, been running matinee/slow shows is to just flip on the motor, and if someone shows up late, press Start on the automation, and when the bulb kicks on, the meter will start going. You can also flip off the motor switch once the automation has started working. ------------------ If ya smell, what the Zach is cooking. Zach Zagar, the most electrifying man in theater entertainment today.  |  IP: Logged Greg Pauley Expert Film Handler Posts: 173 From: Huntington, WV, USA Registered: Jun 2000 posted 09-14-2000 12:36 PM                        I don't like the idea of running a projector on manual just to stop the hour meter from running. What happens if you have a brain wrap or if your takeup platter stops working. You may not get caught today, but sometime in the future this will reach up and bite you on the ass! Why can't you turn off the breaker that feeds the lamphouse?  |  IP: Logged Jason Black Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1723 From: Myrtle Beach, SC, USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 12-22-2002 01:45 PM                        If someone shows up for a film that has been advertised in any media, you are OBLIGATED to run the show as advertised or you could be accussed of false advertising, which, as trivial as it may seem is just plain wrong. If the customer shows up, it's your duty to present the film to them. As much as I hate it, I had to run an 11:30pm show of LOTR II the last two nights for less than 12 people each night. Hardly worth the overall loss of revenue that it created, but much better than listening to the of others had it not been run.... Customers do keep us in business.. turn them away and see what happens...  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 12-22-2002 10:48 PM                        quote: ... from Jason: If someone shows up for a film that has been advertised in any media, you are OBLIGATED to run the show as advertised or you could be accussed of false advertising, which, as trivial as it may seem is just plain wrong. OK (nice bump, by the way! ) ... I can see the point about advertising... and considering how the fast-food giants make sure the burger you see on TV is what you get at the counter I'd certainly never risk advertising something I wasn't fully prepared to run. However, does that technically apply if you advertise a show to start at 10 and nobody shows up until 10:30 or so? Consider live theatre. Most of them will not seat you after a performance has started, both for the sake of the audience and the performers. Is it reasonable to expect you can walk in anytime to a motion picture performance and expect it to be there... any more than you could expect a train to be waiting for you if they knew you'd be showing up late? Our policy is somewhat variable, depending on the show, its history and the day in question. If we haven't had many people show up, we'll probably not motor the show. If it's a mid-day performance & we can get the auditorium cleaned up in time, we'll fudge the start to a point, thereby eating into the cleanup time should someone arrive a little late (10 min or so). If the no-show is unusual, we'll probably motor the print with the lamp off, since we've learned the hard way that people will come in somewhat late. If we've been having lousy attendance for a show & it's gone 15 or 20 minutes in, we sometimes have to admit that the show went too long with nobody showing up. We do try to educate the customer that it would have been less than a perfect performance, as he would have missed the beginning of the show, and all of its critical early storylines . I'll hand it to Brad... that's really dedication (if not his job) to start a show up that late for one guy. I've got to admit... I probably wouldn't have done it, all the customer PR stuff notwithstanding... but then, I don't allow my customers to get rude and abusive, or drape their feet all over my seats, either. A friend of mine has a drive-in where he closes the boxoffice about 45 minutes after the first show has started. He doesn't want people to be driving around a dark field, disturbing those who showed up on time. He also considers the double feature a complete performance, so you can't show up late and buy a ticket for the second show. He's been doing it that way for 25 years, so the community pretty much knows what to expect of him. It only gets him into trouble when someone comes in from out of town & tries the second show routine. On the few times our drive-in really gets rained out, we might close it (especially if it's not Friday or Saturday). A couple of our screens get really wet when the wind's blowing at them, & it screws up the picture pretty badly. We give the early-arrivers carload passes for their trouble, but we don't wait all night for people to show up.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-23-2002 12:11 AM                    I don't think you have any obligation to run the film for someone coming that late. No audience 15-20 minutes past showtime is ample reason to cancel the show and I doubt any consumer protection agency is going to find fault with that. I recently had a whole series of evening screenings booked by one particular studio for Academy members (or so we presume). They were the studio's significant releases over the past year. No one attended any of them. Our policy is to run a single reel then bail. Running to an empty room ensures that should anyone show up late it doesn't make us stay late since if they're late they should expect the show to be already in progress. Obviously that's a luxury a platter house doesn't have since if you run it at all then the whole thing must go through or be painstakingly fast forwarded.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 12-23-2002 05:17 AM                        quote: ... from Steve K: I recently had a whole series of evening screenings booked... No one attended any of them. Our policy is to run a single reel then bail... Obviously that's a luxury a platter house doesn't have. Hadn't thought of that... but it sure is a point in favor changeover houses & the people who have the luxury of the time to run them!  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-23-2002 08:52 AM                    I also agree with Brad. In fact, we usually start all movies early - especially the late long running ones. If there is 20 minutes of "stuff" before the feature presentation cue, then we start 15 minutes early. (I'm pretty sure the customers don't want to be there until 2 am either!) Then if no one shows up we'll shut down the show and speed wind the film on the platters if it's the last show to get out. If its not the last one to get out, we shut off the Xenon, and motor the rest of the film through the projector.  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 12-23-2002 09:30 PM                        I don't know if shows actually do this, but there's an old mantra in the legitimate theatre world that if there's fewer people in the audience than on the stage, you don't have to put the show on.  |  IP: Logged David Favel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 764 From: Ashburton, New Zealand Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-23-2002 09:56 PM                     No No No, we allways play, no matter how many people show up. We work on the principles that a They bothered to show up, we will bother to play. b What if they drove a half hour to get here/ How many more times would they visit if we turned them away. Besides, theres allways something do keep me occupied here.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-26-2002 07:10 AM                        Actually the mantra that we often hear the theatre students saying is, "If there is one person in the house, you play to him as if he were the king." That comes from an old English tale of a troupe in a London theatre who, during a terrible snow storm, were faced with that same dilemma -- only a single patron showed up because of the storm -- do they present the play that night for just one patron? They decided to do the play. Afterward they found out that the one patron was the king. Or so the story goes. As a general rule, a person showing up 20 minutes after the advertised showtime can't have any reasonable expectation that he can get a ticket; what if the show were sold out? And he certainly can't expect that a show be started 20 minutes late just for him it that will cause the theatre and the staff to have to say opened 20 minutes later than scheduled. The very best he can expect if the show is not sold out, is that he is going to have missed the first 20 minutes. You might make an exception and start it late for him IF there were other features that would run longer than the one he is late for. But if starting late will mean that the staff has to stay later -- and many times in a union house that means overtime can kick in -- then I would simply not sell him a ticket and tell him that theatre is shut down. I will go the extra mile for a patron, but only for something that is reasonable. Example: we had a very liberal discount coupon book policy -- each of the five coupons in the book are good for any picture, any time, for up to one year. Each coupon had an expiration date prominently printed. A patron came in with a book that had expired almost two years earlier. And she put up a big argument that we should honor the expired coupons. At one point she even said that yes, they were expired, but for good public relations, I should give her the discount. I then asked did she think her local grocer would honor an expired grocery coupon? She threatened never to come back. It was an unreasonable expectation on her part to think I would bend the policy that far. She didn't get the discount AND she came back....many times. Love 'em, but don't let 'em abuse you. Frank  |  IP: Logged

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