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Topic: Building audience in rural areas

R. Andrew Diercks
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 232
From: Marion, Iowa (In the middle of everywhere)
Registered: May 2003

posted 09-20-2004 10:14 AM

The first theatre I worked at was a single screen in a town of about 5,000 people. It was terribly run down, seams of carpet were secured by duct tape. We had mono sound and a ripped screen. Most people had to duck to enter our single toilet bathrooms. My boss at the time developed a crew that loved the job and had fun there. Our grosses increased over 20% for 3 consecutive years. This wasn't due to product or quality of our building. We all had the attitude that we had the best run theatre in the area. We had fun and so did the customers. This is where I learned the importance of customer service and increasing the frequency of their visits in a small community. The company has since vastly improved it with a remodel and is currently expanding to a 3 screen.

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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 09-20-2004 02:51 PM

quote:
Internet showtimes [Mad] [Mad] [Mad] [Mad] [Mad]

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.

Dustin,

The data services take a variety of sources to compile their information. They fall into two categories: 1) provided by the theater, and 2) getting data in whatever way possible

1)
The most accurate (usually) is a data dump right off your POS terminal system, but this is usually reserved for the larger chains due to the infrastructure cost (and probably the capability of the POS software being used).

Probably the most common way to communicate showtimes to a data provider is by fax. Just add them to your fax distribution and you're set to go. Just make sure that your faxes are readable in both visual quality and legibility of the info you're providing. (You wouldn't believe how sloppy some faxes were when I used to get faxes from theaters)

You may also be able to E-Mail them your showtimes.

2)
This is the least reliable process, as it requires the data provider to pursue your showtimes themselves instead of you sending your information.

Think about the publically available sources for your showtimes information, and that's what they have to do to provide your information to their customers (people like me). If your phone recording is hard to understand, or your web page is hard to find or hard to read, that introduces plenty of opportunities for errors.

I can't imagine that anyone is trying to auto-scan your web pages to get your showtimes. This would most likely result in an incomprehensible mess each time you made any changes to the format of your page, and it wouldn't be worth doing for all the individual web pages that are out there for small theaters.

Nothing is perfect, however. Whenever there is manual entry, there is a possibility for mistakes to be made. It can be as simple as a 6:50 show put down as 7:50 because someone hit the wrong key, or worse, a completely different movie is playing because the id for the right movie was one number different than the wrong one.

I pay attention to this for the theaters that are part of our Featured Theater Service. Since I used to do the data entry all by hand, I'm aware of the pitfalls that can happen, and I often catch errors before they become a big issue. Some things are unavoidable, and problems happen, that's just a fact of life. The important part is how well they are addressed once the problem is identified. I've heard about many more problems getting newspaper ads right than I have about the showtimes I provide.

I get showtimes from CinemaSource, which is owned by Hollywood Media Corp. The other big source is Tribune Media Services.

For contact information for CinemaSource, I have this page on the Extranet for theaters when they ask about submitting showtimes or getting data corrected:

http://www.bigscreen.com/extranet/submitschedule.php

Tribune Media Services is at:

http://www.tribunemedia.com/

and if you submit your showtimes to these two data providers, you have pretty good coverage of newspapers and web sites that carry showtimes.

Of course, if you're not paying them (newspapers, web sites) to do this, what recourse do you have when the times are wrong? While I'm obviously biased, that's why I think that our Featured Theater Service is important. We're accountable to two parties: theaters and our readers, and it's not in the best interest of either relationship to have incorrect information.

Having your own web site is nice and all, but if people don't know about your web site, it doesn't do you any good. Being listed on Google and the like is a hit-or-miss proposition, so it's important to get your showtimes on the popular services as well.

I've found that people like the ability to view showtimes across chain boundaries, instead of having to sift through multiple theater chain web sites just to get the information they're looking for.

That's why, even if you have your own web site, it's important to make sure that your showtimes are as accurate and available as possible to other services. I've never known CinemaSource to refuse a fax from a theater, and they've been very quick to correct problems when they have been identified.

But the bottom line is that you are best served if you send them your info proactively and be sure that what you are providing is usable and easy to perform data entry on.

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Ian Price
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1714
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-20-2004 06:06 PM

Quite right! [Embarrassed]

I always get lost in all those zeros. The correct answer is 5.33 times per year. I divided it backwards.

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Barry Martin
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 203
From: Newington, CT USA
Registered: Jul 2002

posted 09-20-2004 10:04 PM

Thanks for the links Scott, and the encouragement and advice R. Andrew. We do realize the difference good customer service can make, I have always seen the positive effects my service skills have produced and that is one of the more common compliments we are getting from the people who are coming. Not one change has been answered by a "why did you do that", mostly because everything we are changing is a result of common sense. No soda with popcorn? Juice you can buy but have to drink in the lobby? Sheesh, this guy really tried to be as lazy as possible.

Bob Allen wrote:

quote: Brad Allen
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.

Bob, you wouldn't believe the half of it if I told you everything I changed. In addition to the thrown prints and sabotage they faced before I came in the only projectionist they had built Shrek 2 with the middle reel TAILS FIRST and not even soundtrack-soundtrack! They were all told by the former owner to use this cruddy white tape on the edges by the reel change to help with breakdown, which is completely unnecessary as there is lighting a plenty in a very small booth so you can see the splices/reel changes without aids such as this. They were threading by pulling enough leader over the projector and pooling it on the floor to be able to thread the projector and then drag it back to the platter and thread the takeup. The old owner and the projectionist did not even tell them to set the intermittent so that they started in frame! [Eek!]

Well, anyways, we still have some issues but for the most part the picture gets on screen in frame and focus with good sound, just not the best. They are willing to fight the uphill battle and have poured the money in, just trying to see how we can increase our attendance. We have no problem getting them to spend on concession when they get here, averaging a 2.50-3.50 per cap on any given day. Just need MORE people to be spending that 2-3 bucks [Wink]

I just found out that Ladder 49 is releasing on 10/1 instead of 10/8 like my Boxoffice magazine stated so I'm a bit disappointed as I was going to invite the local firefighters down with an engine and have them show off to kids coming to a matinee of Shark Tale in it's second week and have the local paper do a display in the lobby of historic local fires. It was going to be my first big marketing campaign, but now we can't get it unless we want to dump Shark Tale or run two new movies that week, no new movies the week after. [Frown]

Oh well, next time!

Thanks again for all your input, and keep it coming!

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Brad Allen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 688
From: Evansville, IN, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 09-23-2004 03:27 PM

Barry, you will find that Boxoffice is horribly out of date most of the time... You can view most film co's release schedules online.

And nothing wrong with running two new films the same week.
Especially when you have two different demographics involved.

Good luck

Brad "Bob" Allen [Smile]

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