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Author Topic: Independent theater owners Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 08-02-2006 07:53 PM                     Hey Dan: I manage a 248 seat theatre owned by a not-for-profit community corporation in northeastern Iowa. The house is equipped with an Apogee projector an Dolby digital surround sound. It's a very successful "dollar house'.  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 08-04-2006 03:31 PM                        My wife and I built and own a "first run" twin screen drive-in theatre in Watertown, Tennessee (35 miles east of Nashville). We opened the theatre in August of '03 with one screen and a parking capacity of 275 cars. Added the second screen in September of '05 with a parking capacity of around 200. We employee 17 part-timers, mostly high-school and college students. My wife does the payroll, scheduling, food ordering, bookkeeping, film booking (thru our booker), creates all of the theatres display ads for 9 newspapers, etc. I pretty much just work there. I build and break all of the prints, run both projection booths, do all of the maintenance, mow the grass and weed-eat the fence rows, unclog the toilets, lay tile, paint walls, shovel gravel, etc. Our "home office" is litterally in the corner of our den - just a computer and an HP Officejet All-in One. Our screened in patio at home has become the new stock room for paper products and popcorn tubs, and my garage is full of projector parts, restroom partitians, and misc. kitchen equipment. The driveway has been taken over by a new 20' long concessions trailer that only goes down to the theatre on Friday & Saturday nights.  |  IP: Logged System Notices Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi Posts: 215 Registered: Apr 2004 posted 09-12-2011 09:37 AM                 It has been 1864 days since the last post.  |  IP: Logged Melanie Loggins Expert Film Handler Posts: 154 From: Wayne, NE, USA Registered: Aug 2011 posted 09-12-2011 09:37 AM                        Once again, reviving an old thread. I run a non-profit in a town of just over 5,000. Very midwest, very rural. We have a college, but most of the students leave on the weekend, so they're not a huge part of our audience. The theatre closed in 2008 and we reopened it in December and we're still working to get people back in the door. This weekend, I ran Tree of Life. I knew it was a risk, and it turned out to be one that didn't exactly pay off. I had the lowest numbers I've had so far. BUT easily half the people who came told me this was their first visit to the theatre, and I literally had people thanking me afterward for bringing it. So maybe the PR was worth the low numbers? So.... fellow independent theatre runners.... How do you make decisions about which movies to bring? How do you decide on showtimes? Concessions? This weekend was discouraging, and I'd like to hear from other independent managers about how it goes for you.  |  IP: Logged Cameron Andrews Film Handler Posts: 29 From: Rexburg, ID 83440 Registered: Apr 2009 posted 09-12-2011 10:32 AM                     I have a 5 screen, a drive-in and a single screen all within about 15 miles of each other. The 5 screen is a discount so we do a lot of stacking so we don't run into problems very often when it comes to having to choose between two movies. But with the single screen it is a constant battle. It takes time to get to know your customers and what they like to see. We use facebook a lot to get people to vote. That can be risky too though because you might be listening to a loud minority and missing out on the silent majority. We had this problem with "Buck". We had enough requests for it that we thought it would do well. Turns out that everyone that requested it showed up..... and no one else. So it is definitely an endless battle. But the more you experiment, the more you will understand the audience. You may also discover that a part of your audience buys concessions and another part doesn't. So you may have to choose between a movie that will fill the house with a $1 per cap or a movie that will fill half the house with a $5 per cap. At the 5-plex, we find that college students can pack the house with the right movie. And then we clean up all the junk from the food they sneaked in. A good family show might not have the same attendance numbers, but concessions sales quadruple. Anyway. There is my 2 cents.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-12-2011 10:33 AM                        Melanie, I've been running a non-profit art house since 1985. I guess the first thing I can tell you is nothing is carved in stone, including this statement. Your first year is going to be all about learning what audience you have and what they want to come out to see (which is different from what they say they want to see). And just because something bombs, doesn't mean it wouldn't have done well at a different time. Football has started up again, that may be having a detrimental effect on your attendance. Or not. You really have to pay attention to your numbers and be there to listen to the audience. And know what's going on at the nearest other theatres. Even if they are 50 miles away, if people are willing to drive to them, they are your competition. Was Tree of Life your first "art" film? There is so much hit in miss involved in the "art" biz. I'm sure others will be happy to add to the problems of being a commercial house. If you are thinking of being an art house, I'll be happy to talk with you about our experience.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-12-2011 11:06 AM                        There are times you have to bring in a "really good" movie that's not a mainstream hit even if you don't expect it to do a lot of business. Sometimes you'll get surprised with bigger than expected numbers. I remember when we played "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." We had no trailer for it. I thought a subtitled foreign-language film would bomb big-time, but we did very well with it. So you just never know. When you play an art film or a specialty film, you may not fill the seats but you will always get people to come in who don't come to the mainstream movies. Anytime you get "new bodies" in the door, that's a good thing.  |  IP: Logged Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 09-12-2011 01:54 PM                     quote: Jim Bedford We will be starting planning this summer with the Nugget Building owners to do a two screen remodel And will each auditorium be known as a "McNugget"? What next, Jim?- - will they be twinning the Opera House? IMO The Nugget is great the way it is. But you know how I am about such things so my comments shouldn't surpise you.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 09-12-2011 05:43 PM                        You never know what people are going to want to watch. An old-time theatre guy once told me, "The theatre business is up and down like a hooker's drawers." My theatre is a 153-seat single-screen located in a town of 5000 people. My drawing area includes about 20 tiny towns and villages of between 12 and 200 people, and about a dozen Indian Reserves. I have played movies that I figured would be really big, and got an average turnout. I've played movies that were just something to fill in the week for lack of something better being available, and spent the week packing 'em in and tamping 'em down. Of course, some movies that I expect to be really big, are. And vice versa. The worst-attended movie I ever played brought in $60 for the entire week. But on a yearly basis, my revenue has never really changed much, so you just have to take the long view on a down week and know that things will improve. It's all in the movie: Get the right movie and they'll beat a path to your door; get the wrong movie and they stay away in droves. I've had some long spells where it seems nobody wants to go to the movies and then BLAM! The right movie shows up and the crowds are back.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 09-12-2011 06:07 PM                        My company has 13 screens between 2 locations. We have a 7 screen and 5 screen hard top and a single screen drive-in that sits on the same property as the 5 screen. I run the drive-in and the 5 screen. I guess you could say we have a "home office" since all the "corporate" business is handled out of the 7 screen.  |  IP: Logged Melanie Loggins Expert Film Handler Posts: 154 From: Wayne, NE, USA Registered: Aug 2011 posted 09-12-2011 09:24 PM                        You guys are right, I know. And I knew Tree of Life would be slow, and it was. And don't tell me Buck was slow: after being hounded about it for a month, it's what we have next! LOL! Frank, I have you beat by one seat. Otherwise, we sound pretty much the same. Are you split week as well? And do you get frustrated by that, by being told you have to wait yet another week for a movie that wasn't even in the Top 10 this week? Disney is pulling more shenanigans this week that, coupled with my dismal weekend, are taking most of the wind out of my sails.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 09-12-2011 11:49 PM                        I have never done bookings myself. I have a booking agent who sends me a list of movies once a month or so and says, "What do you want to play?" I send back my picks and she returns a schedule for the next month. Most of my stuff is sub-run but I do play something on the break once in a great while. I usually play one movie per week, one show per day, with matinees when I have a kids movie. Sometimes I play two different shows (something at 7pm and something else at 9pm) but I don't do that very often. My theatre is open 363 days per year, closed on Christmas eve and Christmas day, which gives me a chance to paint the auditorium floor and have it dry by showtime on December 26. I have had this theatre for 17 years; there was no theatre here at all for about 15 years before that. I bought a former paint and wallpaper store because it had a sufficiently high ceiling, and made it into a theatre. I measured the slope of the floor in another theatre, bugged a lot of people for information, and I'm really very happy with the result. Plus I think I'm one of the few people who can say that he designed his own theatre. I closed my theatre for the first week of April of this year and took out the film equipment and had everything digital installed. That is the first time the theatre has been closed for any reason other than a power failure or "the movie didn't show up" since the day I opened it. And now I have the only digital cinema for a great many miles around. When the cinema tech was here doing the digital installation he told me that he knew he had passed beyond the edge of civilization because there wasn't a Tim Hortons coffee shop in town. You asked about how to pick concession items. That's another ongoing mystery to me. Through trial and error I have found out what candy sells most of the time, but even then it seems that people sometimes change their minds en-masse. Something that sells like nobody's business for six months will suddenly stop selling and sit for the longest time, then it might take off and sell again (or it might not). I usually just get a bunch of the standard chocolate bars and licorice and hope that it sells. Sometimes weird stuff sells too, like candies that come in tiny plastic trash cans. I once even had "dog food"; some kind of brown candy that came in a tiny plastic dog dish. The kids loved it but I could never find it again. I also buy gummy candy (worms, big feet, fuzzy peach, etc.) in big tubs and re-pack them into smaller bags. I have a bag sealing machine for the purpose and I have plastic candy bags custom made to the size that I want them that I order from an outfit in "the city" once in a great while. To get a decent price on the bags I have to order something like 20,000 at a time but bags keep so having several years supply isn't a problem. I designed labels for all of my gummy candies using Scribus, and print a label for each bag on a colour laser printer as I need them. I use the ten-to-a-sheet Avery labels for that purpose.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-13-2011 09:00 PM                        I'm always surprised at how similar my own theatre is to Frank's. We also use a booker, but ours works slightly differently - he calls me on Monday morning and we discuss what's going to happen for the next couple of weeks. We do play more movies on the break than Frank does, probably 8 to 12 per year. Usually the super-hyped blockbuster-type movies, because the bloom seems to fall off those faster than most. We are closed a few more nights than Frank is -- we close Christmas Eve (but not Christmas Day) and we are closed most Thursdays, unless we're playing a movie that's running for two weeks in which case we'll be open on the "middle" Thursday. We don't bag-up any of our own candy like Frank does, but that sounds like a good idea...we might have to try that sometime. We managed to switch over to digital without being closed any nights. This was mostly due to the fact that we left the film equipment in place. At this point we're the only digital theatre east of Billings in Montana -- which is a pretty big area. In a few weeks we won't be able to say that because Polson Theatres, a 14-unit chain that extends across the top of the state, is in the middle of converting right now. But then we'll be the "only digital theatre in Southeastern Montana" for a while, I guess.  |  IP: Logged Melanie Loggins Expert Film Handler Posts: 154 From: Wayne, NE, USA Registered: Aug 2011 posted 09-13-2011 09:08 PM                        I use a booker and I tell him a week or two in advance what I'd like.... and then we wait to see if I can get it. (And in the case of next week, it looks like I can't, so I have to punt.) I haven't had too many problems keeping to my fantasy schedule. Don't take anything on the break because I just don't have the audience to justify two- and three-week runs. I think the thing that is surprising me the most about this business is how last-minute everything is. It's exhausting! We run movies Thursday-Sunday, and I don't plan on being closed on any holidays. We just reopened and I did open Christmas Eve and Christmas day, so I guess I set the precedent. The only time I'm not there on weekends is when our local theatre group takes over. They're going to take, it looks like, three weekends a year. I don't bag my own candy, either, but it sure sounds like a good idea.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-13-2011 09:22 PM                     Good luck to the "indies", for I love their operations - none of this 'big box' nonsense! But question esp for the subs and discounts: wouldn't booking your own films be easier since the films are already off the break, not competing with opposition for same day and date releases and terms be easier to negotiate?  |  IP: Logged

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