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Author Topic: Building audience in rural areas Barry Martin Expert Film Handler Posts: 203 From: Newington, CT USA Registered: Jul 2002 posted 09-15-2004 04:08 PM                        Sally, good luck to us both! Also, I just found out from www.imdb.com where you can publish showtimes online for most sources, they say it's free but I haven't heard from them yet. See what they say, but you can email them at times@nowshowing.com Jason, thanks for the suggestion! I was considering Garden State, but have also been trying to find a film not rated R as all of our independents have been lately. Lance, thanks for the suggestions, we have started the email list and a survey to poll people's preferred showtimes/days/movies, etc. Ludlow is actually where the owners' other businesses are! If you know Chapter XIV or Scoops, that's them. We do have sort of an "in" with Okemo as one of our concessionists works there in the winter, so we're hoping to develop something there. Mike, I'm not sure why the link doesn't work from the page, did you try typing it in your browser manually? I know the site is working as we have been working on it everyday and had others checking on it for us to give us feedback. Let me know if anything is wrong, thanks!  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-15-2004 05:46 PM                        Barry - the problem with the link was, there's a comma at the end. Removed comma, no problem! How about putting some pictures of your theatre on the site? (In your spare time..... )  |  IP: Logged Dustin Mitchell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1865 From: Mondovi, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 09-15-2004 05:59 PM                     Internet showtimes Is there some unified address you can send information too? I cannot count the number of complaints/angry letters I have gotten because people insist that 'the showtimes on the internet were wrong!" No, OUR website was right, YAHOO, IMDB, whoever were wrong. I don't know if Yahoo has someone entering showtimes in manually or if they have a data mining program that 'crawls' through pages to lift showtimes but either way it seems they take Friday's listed showtimes and copy them for the week so that whenever we have a sneak preview or Wednesday opener they fudge it up. Quite frustrating.  |  IP: Logged Barry Martin Expert Film Handler Posts: 203 From: Newington, CT USA Registered: Jul 2002 posted 09-15-2004 07:43 PM                        Mike, would love to put up some pics both on our own site and on FT, but at the moment have no camera and scanner isn't working well with the computer. Come to think of it, might have been smarter to pick up that digital camera while I was still working for Best Buy Dustin, thanks for the heads up about the internet showtimes, will have to keep an eye out. I think the source that email leads to is something called "zap-2-it" or something like that. I emailed IMDB and asked how showtimes got published with them and they sent me a link to their partners page that had an email for the company which claims to originate showtimes for 94% of the screens in the country and send them to sites for publishing.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-15-2004 08:38 PM                     Build it nice and they will come..... Do film right and they will come.... keep it clean and they will come..... now I've got to go.... Mark  |  IP: Logged Sally Strasser Film Handler Posts: 16 From: Tupper Lake, NY Registered: Nov 1999 posted 09-15-2004 08:42 PM                     Thanks Barry! I'll try that link for listings. Still haven't had enough time to set up a website or email list. I really want to but only have so much time, will get to it though. Mike, good point about educating the adult-types. I've been concentrating on family fare but will show more attention to the older ones when the twin is up. We do posters wherever our small space will allow, and always run trailers. My town has 6200 permanent residents and a lot more during the summer. And we're getting our ski area reopened soon. The question is: do skiiers go to movies more than snowmobilers? I'm sure it will take some time to woo back the people who were turned off by the way this place used to be.  |  IP: Logged Brad Allen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 688 From: Evansville, IN, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 09-18-2004 02:15 PM                     Barry, your owners must understand they are fighting an uphill battle. Since the theatre has gained a bad rep from the former management, it will take time to heal. Probably YEARS to heal. Customers have very long memories about bad experiences. In most small towns, your whipping a dead horse by trying to run "art" films. I doubt they would ever see anything but red ink from art films. Sept for small towns is normally a disaster. The worst month of the year for many reasons. Sounds like there is a lot of Film Done Wrong in your theatre. That is the most important item that needs addressed. Today! And sounds like most of it can be corrected with little money, just elbo grease. You need to become very comfortable with ladders and scaffloding. I go along with the vote you need a good booker. It can make a huge difference in terms and pictures played. I also agree that lowering the price was a mistake. It will haunt you. Speaking from 30 yrs of experience in this nutty biz.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-18-2004 06:23 PM                        Actually November was the worst month for us for a long time, until 2 things happened: More prints, therefore we could get more movies on the break; and the film companies moving the "holiday" season further and further up the calendar, with more blockbusters opening in November. So now our worst month has been Sept. for the past 4 years.  |  IP: Logged Ramin Hashemi Expert Film Handler Posts: 129 From: Houston TX Registered: Sep 2004 posted 09-18-2004 07:04 PM                     Let me offer my two bits worth... We took over a poorly run, money loosing theatre in a small town about 5 year ago. ALMOST EVERYTHING was being done wrong. From selling some concession items at below cost, to canceling showtimes when less than 5 people showed up, to scratching the prints, to throwing prints off the platter often, to wasting a tremendous amount of idle personnel time, to giving poor customer service. The only thing going for us was the fact that there was no other theatre within 70 miles. It took about 5 months to turn things around. Mind you we were totally new to the business. Today, the business has grown by about 100% Gross. We STILL get the occasional comments on the OLD days, so do not get discouraged. Here are some things that worked for us... Learn YOUR audience and what they like. Not just in movies, but also concession products. Offer free refills on larges, and do the upsetting routines. Get together with the schools and implement a student incentive program in which the school brings the kids as a treat. You can give them a movie, a courtesy size drink and brown paper bag of popcorn for $1-$2 above the ticket price. But do this at second or third week when the fees are less. Get on the floor and talk to the customers individually and explain the changes you are implementing. Have an open house with the chamber of commerce. As soon as you have a significant, visible change, take your prices back up. In my experience, people may complain for a day or two, but as long as you stay within the market, you will be fine (no one really cares about $0.25). To me, customer service is always #1. If the print is bad, but the service is good, they will come back. If the print is great, but the service is bad, they will probably not. Good luck Ramin  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-18-2004 08:31 PM                        quote: Ramin Hashemi If the print is bad, but the service is good, they will come back. I would amend this slightly. If the print is OCCASIONALLY bad, they will come back. If you have a reputation of continually running beat-up prints, eventually enough people will notice to affect the bottom-line.  |  IP: Logged Ian Bailey Master Film Handler Posts: 317 From: Nambucca Heads, Australia Registered: Jun 2003 posted 09-19-2004 02:10 AM                     My theatre is in a small country town with a local area population of 16,000 and a possible drawing area of about 30,000.We have tried to implement various stratagies some very successful some a disaster.I think you have got to try different things but not everything will work.I agree with the others about the art-house you will probably be kicking a dead horse.The movies that work for us are the ones that get the heaviest publicity.We are fortunate to be in a popular tourist area where the population increases dramatically during holiday periods.So this is when we make the cash.We put the prices up after we did some renovations and at the same time started a Movie Club for locals.When the tourists are here they think we are so cheap(compared to the cities)that nothing phases them but the movie club has enabled us to get a great data base on the locals.We started it about 18 months ago and we now have more than 600 members.We give our Movie Club members 1.cheap tickets on Monday and Tuesdays 2.a free ticket on their birthday 3. 10% discount at the Candy Bar all the time 4.Free tea and coffee any time they come 5.We do 4 special promotions a year just for movie club members and their friends.All this for $10 per year membership.We also work closely with local schools and charity groups and let them run fundraising nights where we offer the tickets at a discounted rate and they on-sell them at a higher rate.Some of these have been huge successes and some disasters. We try very hard to offer good service to the public and we have the World's Best Choc-Tops-serious we have people walk in off the street just to buy one of our choc-tops.We keep the place as clean and tidy as possible and try to do film done right-we are still on a learning curve with this one. The last couple of months has been financially a disaster for us(and I'm sure were not Robinson Crusoe)with the crap movies that were out(poor selection),very little advertising by the distributors,and the Olympics.Another problem in our situation is the length of time you can afford to hang onto a print-in the cities they can hang onto Shrek for months and just show it on weekends but a small Cinema in a small country town doesn't always allow such luxuries. Hope this helps and Good Luck Ian  |  IP: Logged Ramin Hashemi Expert Film Handler Posts: 129 From: Houston TX Registered: Sep 2004 posted 09-19-2004 12:40 PM                     Ian, this is quite a coincidence. We are also in a small town that draws from the surrounding area, with a market area population of about 35k. Given our population, we do great on per cap (about $3.3 annual average). The main problem is the rotation of films, but that is much better now. Sometimes the number of prints put out limits our ability to get one on the break. Mike, you are absolutely right, poor quality prints can only happen occasionally. Anyone out there have any idea on the average number of times a person goes to a movie each year? I know this is very general and age dependant. Lets assume average US demographics to make it easy. Some more ideas for getting customers: School contests. Everything from drawing contests to essay contests for grade school kids. We had one on "How to cook a turkey on thanksgiving". It was a great hit. It got terrific publicity and helped raise our image. thanks Ramin  |  IP: Logged Ian Price Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1714 From: Denver, CO Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-19-2004 02:08 PM                     Year Admissions (in billions) 2003 1.57 2002 1.63 2001 1.49 2000 1.42 US Population 294,312,595 (The average person goes to the movies 1.875 times per year. Incorrect figure.)The average person goes to the movies 5.33 times per year. US Average Ticket Price 2003, $6.03 35,995 Screens in the US, in 6,000 theatres. (From N.A.T.O) This is a guess: Only 30% of the population go to movie theatres, therefore the average attendence for the movie going population is probably more like 6-films per year. [ 09-20-2004, 06:09 PM: Message edited by: Ian Price ]  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-19-2004 08:13 PM                     Ian, might you have the population (for each year too) of the US in a year-by-year in comparison to admissions? Steve  |  IP: Logged Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 09-20-2004 05:42 AM                        quote: Ian Price Year Admissions (in billions) 2003 1.57 2002 1.63 2001 1.49 2000 1.42 US Population 294,312,595 The average person goes to the movies 1.875 times per year. i make it about 5 times a year. carl  |  IP: Logged

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