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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: Let people to all the movies they want for the price of a single ticket
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Dave Bird
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 777
From: Perth, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted 12-01-2017 11:30 AM
We bought a whack of gift cards and our system handles them, we can reload them, put up signage and offered them for two years. Not a single person bought one. Shocked me actually. A small handful ask this time of year, my issue is I have no way to encode or process payment away from the theatre (that could probably be overcome, except for the fact that at some point every winter, we'll get a power flicker back at the drive-in and we lose access to our cash system server so my version here doesn't operate).
But besides all that, we have a very limited number of admission categories (child, general, "triple-feature general" & Thursday carload). If general is $12, why couldn't I simply create another category at $10 or $11 applied and rung in for those who buy them in packs of 10 or something?
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Jonathan M. Crist
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 531
From: Hershey, PA, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 12-05-2017 07:43 PM
Here Comes Cinemark's answer to MoviePass called 'Movie Club'
Cinemark on Tuesday unveiled Movie Club, a monthly plan that lets people buy a movie ticket a month for a discounted price of $8.99. It also allows members to roll over unused tickets every month, bring friends at the lower price and offers bargains on concession stand items.
Cinemark (CNK) owns nearly 350 theaters in the U.S., which collectively operate more than 4,500 movie screens. The company also owns about 200 theaters with nearly 1,400 screens in Latin America.
Mark Zoradi, CEO of Cinemark, told CNNMoney that the new pricing program is clearly geared toward Millennials, who are used to paying monthly fees for TV and movies on Netflix (NFLX, Tech30) and Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) and music subscriptions on Spotify.
Zoradi added that Cinemark has been researching the idea of a monthly service since the start of the year and found that most consumers wanted the ability to stockpile discounted tickets.
In other words, if you sign up for Movie Club but you really only care about summer blockbusters, you could wind up with four months of discounted tickets to use just as May rolls around and Hollywood starts churning out action movies and sequels.
Movie Club also differs from a service called MoviePass, which introduced a $9.95 a month plan in August that lets you see an unlimited number of movies in theaters. It subsequently rolled out a limited time offering for an $89.95 annual plan too.
MoviePass buys tickets from Cinemark and other chains and resells them to consumers at a discount. On the surface, it's a better deal if you really like to go to the movies a lot but don't want to buy any pricey popcorn or sodas.
And shares of the company that is in the process of buying a majority stake in MoviePass, Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY), have soared more than 265% this year.
The new Movie Club service from Cinemark could be a way to lure back customers to theaters after a tough 2017.
There were several big duds at the box office this summer and it's unclear if even a successful debut of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" later this month will lead to a winning year for studios and theater chains.
The slump at the multiplex is a big reason why theater chains have missed out on this year's big market rally.
Cinemark's shares have fallen 5%. Regal (RGC) is flat. IMAX (IMAX) is down more than 20%. And AMC (AMC) has plunged more than 50% this year after warning in August that its earnings would miss forecasts.
The industry's challenges are even leading to some consolidation. Regal said Tuesday that it plans to be bought by the U.K.'s Cineworld.
The movie theater chains face many headwinds. Many are in investment mode, spending more to make theaters nicer to attract more customers.
Part of the problem is the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema phenomenon, as many consumers in urban areas are going to chains like Alamo that offer more upscale food and drinks as well as a movie. The standard multiplex at the suburban mall may be losing its allure.
Cinemark's Movie Club
Wonder how long until Cinemark sells out to someone?
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 12-08-2017 11:47 PM
More to add, and some others said that MP should have test marketed the concept out before making it nationwide.
Plus, do you want BIG BROTHER stealing your identity?
quote:
UPDATED: MoviePass is offering a limited-time subscription that will allow users to pay $6.95 a month to watch a movie a day for a year. The service typically costs $9.95 a month, but the new deal comes with a catch. Users have to commit to a 12-month subscription.
“We did a soft launch yesterday,” MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe told Variety. “We’re discovering there’s much more interest and demand than we ever imagined. We keep hearing from customers that they want an annual plan or they wanted some way to give MoviePass as a gift.”
MoviePass is trying to become the Netflix of cinema-going, but right now it seems to be more focused on building a customer base than turning a profit. The company pays theaters the full price for a ticket, so it is in essence subsidizing its users’ movie-going and losing money each time they check out a film. The average movie ticket cost $8.60 through the first three quarters of 2017. In some major cities, such as Los Angeles and New York, it sets customers back more than $10. MoviePass said its one-year subscription plan will be available only for a limited time.
Some theater owners have been unhappy with the service. AMC, the country’s largest chain, threatened legal action and predicted the company would fail. There is anxiety that customers will get accustomed to paying a discounted rate for tickets, which will depress prices, like bargain movie rental services such as Redbox and Netflix made Blockbuster and its hefty late fees obsolete.
Last August, MoviePass sold to Helios and Matheson Analytics, a publicly traded data firm. As part of the deal, it slashed its monthly pricing from as much as $50 a month to less than $10. In the process, its subscriber rolls swelled. When it sold, the company has roughly 20,000 subscribers. Now it has north of 600,000. Recently, MoviePass announced it had raised $100 million to fund operations. Even though MoviePass is operating in the red, the company believes that it will be able to monetize the data it collects on its customers or that it will drive so much foot traffic to theaters that they will give them some kind of discount.
“There are a lot of ways to make a buck,” Lowe said. “There’s advertising revenue. There’s marketing revenue. We’ll start testing these things with potential partners in the coming months. We’ve proven that we can build a big base of loyal subscribers.”
Linky Story
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Harold Hallikainen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 906
From: Denver, CO, USA
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 12-09-2017 01:22 PM
The Ponzi analogy is interesting.
We keep seeing comparisons to Netflix. Streaming with a fixed subscription price is interesting. I wonder what the studio licensing is. I suspect they MAY either pay an annual license fee for each title they are allowed to stream, or MAY pay a per stream fee on each title. The latter would allow them to have a larger library since they would not pay a lot for stuff that does not have a lot of demand. They could possibly have every movie ever made and just pay when someone streams it. This would be a bit similar to Movie Pass, but I suspect the stream license fee per use would be substantially less than Netflix's monthly fee (as compared to Movie Pass where the "licence" (ticket) for just one use is more than the monthly fee).
The Netflix DVD service is an interesting contrast (the same as video rental stores) in that they pay a one time fee and can continue to use the DVD forever (or until it wears out or breaks). The number of movies someone watches in a month (and Netflix's per use costs such as postage, DVD picking and return) is limited by the turnaround time on DVD return and shipping the next one.
Amazon's stream rental is another interesting approach. Again, I don't know what the studio license is, but it COULD be a free license with a share of the rental fees. This would allow them to make available every movie ever made without having to pay license fees that exceed rental income.
Back to Ponzi... for it to work, current users have to be paid for by new users. But, it appears that they lose money on the new user in the first month, so the new user can't really fund existing users. It appears investors are funding users, but they will eventually want their money back. Everyone seems to assume that advertising can be used to pay for anything. But it seems that advertising has become so plentiful that the value of any individual ad exposure has an extremely low value. There's only so much money available to be spent on advertising, and it's being spread thinner and thinner. The sale of personal data is also supposed to fund businesses. Generally, I think, personal data is promoted as allowing for targeted advertising. Even that is becoming so common that its value is dropping.
So, the different business models are interesting (especially Netflix and Amazon). But I don't see a profitable business model for Movie Pass, so we'll see how long it lasts.
Harold
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 12-09-2017 06:49 PM
I'm sure in their Excel sheet in their big business plan it all works out wonderfully. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Also, you don't need to have a valid business plan to attract investors... just look at Twitter. Heck, you don't need to have a valid business plan to do an IPO (again, look at Twitter). Double or triple heck, something doesn't even need to have any real-world collateral at all to have "value"... look at Bitcoin.
The only way this thing can ever be profitable, is if they can buy shows at $4 a pop or less and that's what they'll start pushing for. It's essentially what happened with Netflix. Mind you, some of the same guys are behind this. With Netflix, they tricked the Hollywood guys to give them their holy grail for cents on the dollar, just because they were shitting their pants. They were losing the rental and "boxed medium" markets at breakneck's pace and were too incompetent to come up with something workable themselves.
Here they clearly hope one of the big chains will break and give them their deal, which will automatically mean they'll have at least a foot between the door at the others. They obviously know AMC is in dire straits and they will probably try to work their way in and convince some execs about this bold new business model:
"You're not filling those seats now, so what are you doing? You're putting in good money for expensive refurbs so you can sell at premium rates, yet that's still no guarantee you'll get those butts in those seats. What if we've got THE solution for you... We'll easily double your attendance, whatever you'll lose on the tickets, you'll earn back double on the concessions you sell!"
That's the pitch they're going to give, in the hope someone breaks.
In the meantime they sell their investors the bullshit picture they can easily fill the gaping holes in their P&L with big time profits from advertising and big data magic. So, after a few months, the whole corporate world doesn't only know John Sharp likes Twinkies and Ding Dongs, but also likes to watch cheesy action movies with his friends and romantic love stories, but only alone and on Thursday.
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