Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Will it be busy Tuesday

This is topic Will it be busy Tuesday in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Chris Mosel (Member # 1451) on 11-01-2004, 12:03 PM:

Please keep your reply politic free.
What are your feelings about business on election day? Being in Texas we have been spared most of the heated advertising and get out the vote stuff, so I'm not sure how bad we will suffer Tuesday night. Feel free to follow up on Wednesday with what happened.

Posted by Jeff Akin (Member # 1198) on 11-01-2004, 12:12 PM:

In my opinion, we'll see a small dip in the evening.

There are 2 crowds you're dealing with here. the group that is engrossed in the coverage, and the group that is just ready for this whole thing to be over.

All in all, we'll see a slower 7:00, and a pretty dead 9:00.

That's my $.02.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 11-01-2004, 01:25 PM:

With the importance of this election, more people than ever will be watching the coverage on television after they vote.

Sure, some are so "sick" of the process that they will want the escape of going to a movie, but I suspect it will be a very slow night for theatres. Let's hope the results don't get delayed by weeks of "hanging chads" or court actions, like in 2000.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-01-2004, 01:51 PM:

My experience has been that in British general elections cinema attendance is boosted quite a bit on election night. My guess for the reason would be that the polls close at 9, most of the results start coming in around midnight and the outcome is usually known by around 2-3am. Therefore if you're planning to make a night of it, a movie from around 8-10pm will mean that you get home just in time to switch on the TV for the interesting stuff to start. I was working in a cinema on election nights '92 and '97 and went to see a film on election night '01, and would say that audiences were well above normal for a Thursday night (British elections are always on a Thursday) on all three occasions.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 11-01-2004, 01:55 PM:

We've had a tremendous early voting turnout here. 271,000--about 1/3 of the registered voters in this county have already voted (including me). The lines at my local shopping mall polling place on Friday (the last day for early voting here) were amazing--hundreds of people in line.

So it will be interesting to see what kind of business day you guys have tomorrow. I too suspect many people here will catch a discount matinee then head home to watch the tally on the tele.

Posted by Jeff Akin (Member # 1198) on 11-03-2004, 11:49 AM:

2:00 set attendance: 73 patrons

5:00 set attendance: 6 patrons

7:00 set attendance: 2 patrons

9:00 set attendance: NOBODY

I'm on the west coast, so the eastern coverage started hitting around 5:00, while the coverage started around 4:00.

Yeah, I'd say the election effected attendance. They may not have declared a winner last night, but the real loser was my theatre!

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 11-03-2004, 01:28 PM:

We had a better than normal tuesday.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 11-03-2004, 02:37 PM:

quote:
They may not have declared a winner last night, but the real loser was my theatre!

quote: Brad Allen
We had a better than normal tuesday.

I wonder if it was a "Blue State" / "Red State" thing? [Wink]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-03-2004, 06:35 PM:

We had an average night. Nobody said a thing about the election.

Posted by Chris Mosel (Member # 1451) on 11-04-2004, 09:03 AM:

We were down about 25% for the day.