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Author Topic: Retro Cinemas Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-09-2006 01:30 PM                        Bobby is right....it's not about the seating design but just about seeing the image without having to see around some meathead's meat head. I don't mind slopes because since I hate people (at least when they are in crowds), I never go to movies at peak times. You will NEVER see me in a line on a Friday night. So sloped is just fine because I can almost always find a seat with no one in front of me. Plus, I like to sit where the left & right edges of the screen just come to my perriferal sight, i.e., nearly fills my view; most people like sitting further back, as I can attest when my friends are walking behind me as we all walk down the isle and I inveriably hear, "Damn, where are you going?" long before I am ready to pick a row. And then there are good slopes and lousy ones. The good ones have a lot of space between each row and the seats are staggered so that you only need to find a seat where there is no one in a seat in the row in front of you, beyond that, they won't obstruct. Likewise, there are good stadium designs and lousy ones. The good ones allow good leg room and multiple entry levels so that you need not walk up stairs to get to the higher tiers, but can walk up a sloped isle outside the room and then enter at higher levels. The lousy ones have you mountain climbing the whole way, which no doubt must be hell for older folk. And older folk are still a dominant force in the market with that demographic still growing (older ) so it is unwise to be dismissive of their likes and dislikes. And what I hate most about the bad stadium design is when they have cramped leg room. I have literally been sitting with my knees touching the seat in front of mine in this one multiplex (and if that were their ONLY crap issue they would be WAY ahead of the game). That alone will put such a theatre on my "Theatres To Avoid Like The Plague or Avian Flu" list. Go to movies on Monday matinee....then stadium or slope won't matter.  |  IP: Logged Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 06-09-2006 07:43 PM                     As I read the rather spirited defense of stadium seating I am inclined to believe it's a generational thing. Those who are fairly new to our business believe stadium seating, DTS and xenon lamps are the only way to go as sloped floors (they're NOT flat), carbon arcs and magnetic stereo are "old fashioned" while the newer technology MUST be superior because it was developed during their lifetime and is identified with their generation. I will be moving to a very small town in Iowa in a few days to take over as GM of a 248 seat sloped floor, restored, art-deco, single screen house that sells out almost every week. It is equipped with an Apogee projector and strong platter and Sony stereo surround sound. It has a single admission price - .99 cents - and pays just 35% to the distributors. It looks like something that came straight out of the 50s. The nearest competition is about 30 miles away. The theatre is owned by a non-profit community group. It has solid support from the community who don't seemed to be the least bit concerned that it is a sloped floor operation. It has been re-opened for about three years and the corporation does not have to subsidize it as it actually makes a profit.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 06-10-2006 06:11 PM                        Congrats, Robert. Glad to see something came along to get you out of the old folks' home! Best of luck... Jack quote: Mike Spaeth Unless it is a specialty venue, people WILL NOT patronize sloped floor theatres when they have a stadium choice. Don't think I'd agree with that, either. Our area has 32 screens. 10 of them are in one building, which is the only stadium house we have. It does very well... however, it's also new, and has a fairly good chunk of the county to itself. 12 of those screens are in our county's major shopping hub. They do the majority of the indoor business around here, get the majority of the young-patrons' business, and NONE of them are stadium. Location still means something in this business.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 06-12-2006 11:14 AM                        As the reinventor of the stadium theatre, if the location is next door, the stadium theatre gross will be 3 times the normal theatre, all other things being equal. AMC/Cinemark in Dallas showed this. (Stadium is not new; Greeks & Romans had them and quite a few were built locally in the 1930's.) Louis  |  IP: Logged Brad Allen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 688 From: Evansville, IN, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 06-12-2006 03:24 PM                     It's my belief that customers are more concerned with "atmosphere" than they are with quality. Whether it's a food joint or a movie theatre. I know of several stadium theatres in this area that have absolutely horrid presentaion, but do a heck of a biz. While the ones with better (but non-stadium) than average presentation suffer.  |  IP: Logged Steve Scott Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1300 From: Minneapolis, MN Registered: Sep 2000 posted 06-12-2006 04:21 PM                     Why not do half & half? I mean, closer to half than most new builds? The Riverview in Minneapolis has had great success with such. They have well over ten rows in the front half of the auditorium, and from the middle of the room back is standard stadium style. Liebenberg/Kaplan built several single screens around Minneapolis with this style.  |  IP: Logged John T. Hendrickson, Jr Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 889 From: Freehold, NJ, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-13-2006 07:13 PM                     When we were a five plex, a competitor built an 18 screen stadium theater five miles up the road. You could sit out front and count the cars drive by us as they went to the new theater. As a matter of survival, we closed, expanded and retrofitted with stadium seating. Had we not done so, I probably would not have retired, and still be teaching school and working projection part-time for another employer. You can argue slope vs stadium all you want. You can't argue economics, at least not in our heavily populated, over-screened area.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 06-18-2006 07:14 PM                        Steve; the BEST stadiums are half and half, with 48" between rows and a max of 10-12" HIGH. aisles on the side to maximize seating "in the center". This way, if the screen isn't TOO big, the older people can still stand it in the sloped section or the first 1 or 2 rows of the stadium. Louis  |  IP: Logged

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