Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Any Cinemarkers gettin hacked off about Passion group sales??

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Posted by Chris Medley (Member # 2145) on 02-14-2004, 08:23 PM:

Problems abound with the group sales department not zeroing out showtimes at my theater...example...

yesterday tickets go on sale....we sell hoards. Today we get an email with a list of bookings...we have a booked auditorium that had 180 tickets sold to the public yesterday...man are we in trouble.. [puke]

I feel an interlock coming

I do have to give the group sales people credit..the demand has been huge...but there has been a big lack of communication.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-14-2004, 09:17 PM:

Interlocking is fun and easy. You should be excited to get to do it! [Big Grin]

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 02-15-2004, 01:53 AM:

Yeah, they finally got everything done for us on Thurs Night.
Still they included some dark time stuff for us that we have to work around.

Posted by Manuel Francisco Valencia (Member # 710) on 02-15-2004, 02:17 AM:

Sorry fellas. Based on our situation I really got to hand it to the groupsales dept. We got all of our group bookings before we starting selling to the public. They also either got a $2 percap in the deal or a Movie Meal per person. I think all of the other theatres got this as well.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 02-15-2004, 02:23 AM:

I'm not complaining that they didn't get things in on time. They did. It's just the dark time stuff, although one time, that has to be done.

Posted by Chad Lindsey (Member # 2212) on 02-15-2004, 07:31 PM:

I agree there was a lack of communication, but they've made so much money off of this I think I can find it in my heart to forgive them!

Posted by Chris Medley (Member # 2145) on 02-16-2004, 01:18 AM:

Paul
How are you guys gonna handle the transport from Tinseltown??

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 02-16-2004, 01:43 AM:

Sounds like there's some "same-company" communication code going on here! [Smile]

This is one situation where having a 450 seat auditorium has come in handy.

Also, having a POS system that pulls the seats when the group is sold has turned out to be a good thing, too. Don't all you big-chain guys have that??????

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 02-16-2004, 08:39 AM:

Jack,

Our system does NOT allow for the seats to be 'pulled' when sold. Actually, we have no presale capability, aside from same day advance. Our company decided to have 56 different pads on tickets printed up. Each time slot for each day has it's own pad. Each pad has the number of seats able to be sold in the theatre it will be in. The patron pre-purchases a ticket now an dredeems it at the box office on the date of performance.

The preselling has worked out rather well, but as NONE of my shows has sold out (not even close yet), I am left with little other option than to tell my cashiers how many tickets they can sell for a given show. It will be up to them to keep track of the number they sell versus the number that has been presold.

If the show(s) had sold out in advance, this wouldn't pose a problem, however, because they did not, we must chnage our seating caps on a per show basis based on how many advanced tickets were sold which is going to make it really interesting when we have folks buying tickets for a 7:00 show at noon when the box office opens.

Not a soul in our corporate office has mentioned the fiasco that is sure to occur at soem locations. I'm still trying to determine the best procedure for ensuring that the cashiers do not oversell any shows.

And the worst part? I'll be in Vegas when the film opens, so I have to count on my asst's to get his right. All extremities will be crossed in hopes they do. [Eek!]

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 02-16-2004, 08:51 AM:

Chris, I am running at least one midnight show. I will just clamp them and deliver after these shows are over.

Then the next morning, pick them up after they are done.

It would be nice to meet you sometime if you wanted to come down.

Paul

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 02-16-2004, 10:50 AM:

From Jason:

quote:
Our system does NOT allow for the seats to be 'pulled' when sold.... Our company decided to have 56 different pads on tickets printed up. Each time slot for each day has it's own pad.... I'll be in Vegas when the film opens, so I have to count on my asst's to get his right.

Ahhhhh... just ribbing you guys a little. [Big Grin]

Sounds like you've got a challenging system though. Good luck! I was in Florida this month (we live near Seattle). Even with most everything I own accessible by my laptop, things still happened. I had a triac blow in a brand new dimmer & we were switching the lights with the circuit breaker until I got a friend of mine up from 60(ish) miles away to fix the darned thing.

Posted by Stephen Jones 1 (Member # 114) on 02-16-2004, 11:01 PM:

I'm sure all you Cinemarkers have seen the email on how much this film has made in pre-sales alone for the company. My location hardly ever gets group bookings and we have 10 lined up already. Not to mention the plethora of calls received each day about when tickets go on sale. Since I have ATS, we still have a little time before the storm hits. If any of you will be at the Dallas roadshow, make sure and say hello! [Smile]

Posted by Chris Liczbinski (Member # 1957) on 02-16-2004, 11:10 PM:

We (Movies 16 in Grand Prairie) also have our prints playing at Tinseltown but now at least we just have to make one trip to pick up the print after they are done with it. We too have had a few minor problems with seating being zeroed out for completely booked shows, but I think we got it worked out now.

Posted by Chris Medley (Member # 2145) on 02-17-2004, 01:09 AM:

I think we will all breath easier now...they seem to have worked the kinks out...sorta [thumbsup]

Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 02-19-2004, 01:08 AM:

Ugh.. ATS.. >>shudder<<

Posted by Chad Lindsey (Member # 2212) on 02-19-2004, 02:56 AM:

Just remember guys, no Hellboy standees near the Passion auditorium! And a big "Hello" to Stephen and Paul (nice singing by the way)

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 02-19-2004, 09:48 AM:

Yeah Thanks !

No comments about my dancing though [Smile]

Posted by Manuel Francisco Valencia (Member # 710) on 02-19-2004, 01:09 PM:

I didn't go this year but I heard about the twinkle twinkle little star. Was that you Paul? No theatre is perfect.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 02-19-2004, 04:34 PM:

Yeah, my GM took the offer from Jeff Stone that he was confident that there were no presentation problems in the theatre. Jeff promptly called the theatre and asked a manager to check for problems, explaining what he was looking for.

He, Jeff, called back and she reported an intermittent scratch that would last for a second or less. When he asked if that was it, she mentioned a theatre that was slightly out of frame.

That was the reason my GM had to come sing the song. I promptly called my asst. and had him check the theatre and reported to Jeff that the problem had already been fixed. He had me come up and sing with the GM.

It was entertaining.

I wish I could have met the other Cinemarkers who are on this forum.

Posted by Chad Lindsey (Member # 2212) on 02-19-2004, 06:51 PM:

Paul, you did meet me, I was sitting directly behind you (the one who saw you call and tell the asst to "pick up line 1!")

I was also the one who recommended they fix the VCR with a paper clip!

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 02-21-2004, 06:17 PM:

I was reading an article about the guy who bought 6,000 tickets to see The Passion of the Christ at a Cinemark in Plano TX.

quote:
"$42,000 is a lot of money for us, so it was a big commitment," said Bonnema, who owns an insurance agency with his son.

The Cinemark theater has 20 screens, and Bonnema and his family have rented them all for the showing of The Passion.

"We're going to do the largest two screens twice, so we'll actually be showing it 22 times between 6:30 in the morning and 9:30 [at night]," he said.

They decided to stagger the show times in 30-minute intervals so that all 6,000 people would not enter the complex at the same time.

http://www.mcjonline.com/news/04a/20040205c.shtml

Here a few observations. You don't need 20-prints to service this theatre, since they are staggering the show times you could do it with 5-prints. Also since this is only 22-shows in a 20-plex that could conceivably do 100-shows per day, I assume they will run a regular schedule of films as well on the other 15-screens they don't need. Also since you only need 5-prints, you only need 5-screens, so they won't be running it on "every screen."

My next observation is that we are offering large groups the senior discount. If you buy a large block of tickets, (20 or more) and pay with one transaction, I will sell them all to you at our senior rate of $6. I noticed in Dallas that their ticket prices are somewhat lower then the Bay Area. So $42,000 divided by 6,000 is $7 per ticket. It sounds like this guy just paid a premium for these tickets. Cinemark and Mel are making more off of this guy than if they had just sold the tickets at the Matinee, Senior and Adult prices.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-21-2004, 06:21 PM:

quote:
Paul, you did meet me, I was sitting directly behind you

Ok Paul it's official, you may not attend any more Cinemark meetings without taking a camera with you to obtain member photos. [Big Grin]

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 02-22-2004, 02:20 AM:

Rodger Dodger Boss !