my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Ground Level   » What have your experiences been with free admisison movies (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: What have your experiences been with free admisison movies Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 08-10-2013 08:56 AM                     Used to love the free shows. Some of the kids were in awe of our theatre because I am sure that they had never set foot in one in their lives. Several years ago, we had to ban a certain group from coming. After the show in question, we found torn cut seats, popcorn everywhere from a fight that happened, and a soaked screen from all the drinks they threw at it. The 'teachers' denied that their kids were the problem, but we never had it happen again once they were thrown out. When we started charging $1 for the same shows, business went down, and concession sales fell.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-13-2013 02:22 PM                        This year, instead of doing the typical movies that you listed in the first post - we ran some older titles. Now most of these titles were pretty obscure. But here is where the advantage of this kicked in: We lucked out on some of the rentals, and paid less than the typical rental fees for the films. Most of the bulk of people that came in were with day cares, y.m.c.a.s, and other groups. So while certain days had virtually no people - other days I had to run the titles in up to 4 auditoriums - because of the groups. So our take on this was that certain, older titles, did have some type of appeal - but it really did not matter what film was playing - most of the people were appreciative that we offered free films. I think it helped that we ran a popcorn/soda deal at the concession stand also.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-13-2013 02:39 PM                        On one of the re-issues of "Wizard of Oz," our booker didn't think we should play it but we had an opportunity for one of those paid-admission-by-a-sponsor shows, so we used Oz for that. I was not expecting too much since the movie is on TV all the time, but we had a nearly full house. People love "free."  |  IP: Logged Mike Williams Master Film Handler Posts: 255 From: Knoxville, TN Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-18-2013 07:06 AM                     So - I have not been in the industry in about 8 years and have not helped run a theater in about 12... but I still lurk here sometimes (it DOES get in your blood) Some of my fondest memories are running the summer kids shows at the Regal Palace 18 in Miami 15 years ago. I ran them every year until I moved to Knoxville to work at corporate. The admission was free and we ran 2 movies (G and PG rated)on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We would interlock 15 of our 18 screens on these two prints. Usually the G rated got 4 or 5 houses and the PG rated got 10 or 11 houses. We would usually fill every house. We started in April/May by sending mailers out to every day care, church and summer camp in Miami with our movie schedule and then do it again right before school let out. We would then call some of the centers that we know might attend or attended last year. On average, we would have between 1800-2000 kids arrive by bus and maybe another 200-300 arrive individually. Tuesdays were always a little busier than Wednesday. The night before, we would have the concession people assemble as many of the cardboard kid pack trays and have them staged on the back counters of both concession stands.. then the fun part: At 6am the morning of each show, I would come in and set up both interlocks. This took almost an hour and everything was double checked. Around 8:00, the staff would start to arrive to open both concession stands. We would fully staff both of them. First order of business was to get the poppers running and get EVERY STATION ready for the rush. By 9, I had 2-3 ushers arrive for crowd control. At least one employee would come in just to direct school buses and stand outside(at the request of the shopping center we were in - they wanted buses parked in the back).. By 9:15 buses started coming in. The lobby and concession area would be full of screaming kids for almost an hour as buses arrived and kids went to the concession. By the second week, things would always become more organized. At 10am, we would start both interlocks. (usually after saying a couple prayers [or a drink] I would always make sure there was at least one other manager/projectionist in the booth to babysit but we were BOTH up there when it started. In the 5 years I ran the kiddie shows, we only had one interlock problem and it was toward the end. The first projector tailed out and missed the shutdown cue and killed the interlock. Of course, the last projector was still 2-3 minutes before the credits started. Luckily, we recovered it pretty quickly once we figured out what happened. Of course, with old prints, as soon as we received them, they were carefully put together and test run in an empty house - that was well worth the extra time. By the time the shows were ending - we would have the concession people start cleaning theaters and closing down the back concession stand. We would direct most of the kids out the back doors directly to their buses. The kids shows were pretty successful for us. Since the admission was free, we encouraged the summer camps to bring money for popcorn and a lot of them did. We pushed the kiddie packs, which at the time were $3 I think. The trick was reaching out to the summer camps and day cares. That was the game changer. The per cap was somewhere in the $2-$2.50 range sometimes more. We ran these on Tuesday and Wednesday every week. On the crowd control side - we never had any huge issues. We made sure we knew who was chaperoning and running each day care and had their numbers. I bet with digital projection this could be successful in a lot of places.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-18-2013 09:11 AM                        Mike - Some of my fondest memories were not the same as yours. I remember running free kids shows down in Florida. Interlocking up to 4 auditoriums at the same time. Locking the front doors, as we had reached our maximum capacity. Looking out those doors and seeing all those kids with frowns upon their faces. I guess you didn't have to clean the theatres afterwards? Yeah, that'd have to be the worst memory... EVER.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.