quote: Richard C. Wolfe

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I'm curious as to what others due to inform your patrons that you're closing, when bad weather forces you to do such. I went to the Carmike website to see if they had closed but couldn't find anything stating such. I guess since it's a national site, it would be difficult to list closings in specific locations.

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With the national chains that post showimtes/sell tickets on services like Fandango and moviefone, usually simply cancelling the show in the POS system takes the showtime off the website.
With Regal theaters, the showtimes on the website come straight from Fandango or movietickets.com depending on the theater.
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-23-2005, 09:06 AM:
 
It kills me how the corporate bone heads force a theater to stay open in situations like this. Our theater doesn't have the best attendance in the world anyway, we're in an upscale yuppy town, and when it snows like this, no one goes anywhere. We know that. Corporate just thinks we're another mega plex. (We're not, we're a multiplex, but they treat all theaters like megas these days.) And even tho the only people who made it to the theater to work were one manager and one concessionist (who was a trainee), they still made the theater open - and we had a whopping attendance of 22 people for the matinee.

[ 01-23-2005, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Mark J. Marshall ]
 

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Posted by Jarryd Beard (Member # 2543) on 01-23-2005, 10:44 AM:
 
I think changing a website would be hard simply because many of the webmasters probably aren't updating on weekends. Carmike posts all of their showtimes for the rest of the week on Fridays.

I think the least theatres should do is place a message on the show announcer. That way, people calling the line for movie times would find out. In my past experience, Carmike's been pretty good with letting theatre managers make the call. They've cancelled shows for snow as well as a water main break. On all cases, the district manager has backed the manager up.

[ 04-13-2005, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: Jarryd Beard ]
 

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Posted by Brandon Willis (Member # 2345) on 01-23-2005, 11:19 AM:
 
If we were to cancel only a few shows, like the last 4 or 5 shows of the night, we can just lock them out in the POS, in which case the Fandango website will tell you that the show is sold out if you try to buy a ticket. When we cancel entire sets, however, we cancel them in the POS, in which case they won't show on the website.
As far as letting everyone know that we closed early, we simply put it on the showtime recording and put up signs on the front doors. I called some of the other theatre's recordings in the area and the only other one that said they would close early was the Regal Short Pump 14. Here's the funny part: Our recording says "This recording is good for Saturday January 22 and Sunday January 23. Due to inclement weather, we will close at 8:00 in Saturday January 22." I guarantee people are going to come up there on Sunday and say "It says you're closing early today on the recording."
 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 01-23-2005, 12:12 PM:
 
We opened at the scheduled time and ran everything as scheduled, including the midnight which was the best attended movie of the day. We didn't have the organ overtures before the 7.15 and 9.30 since the organiat didn't want to drive in from Virginia Beach. Our in town location works in our favor on days like that. Quite a few walk. Six guys rode in the back of a pick up from the University of Richmond to the "Big Lebowski" midnite. Two of them were in T-shirts on a 16 degree night! If electricity is on we're usually open.

[ 01-24-2005, 07:41 AM: Message edited by: Bill Enos ]
 

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Posted by Brandon Willis (Member # 2345) on 01-23-2005, 12:52 PM:
 
Dang. You guys ran "The Big Lebowski" as the midnight last night? I had that rarest of things for theatre managers, a Saturday off, and I was going to go check that out but I assumed you guys were closed. I guess that's why it helps to call the theatre!

[ 01-24-2005, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: Brandon Willis ]
 

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Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 01-23-2005, 08:06 PM:
 
Jarryd,

Carmike does not input showtimes on Friday for the entire week. Often, times are put in on Monday, and most often, on Tuesday for the upcoming weeks schedules. Not sure how it works in other divisions/districts, but in ours, the District secretary is responsible for input of showtimes, unless a city manager is available, in which case he/she is responsible for all his/her theatres schedules.

Our site allows for immediate changes at any time. Cold Fusion is great that way.... I change my own as needed.

It is also the Division level manager who makes the call on ANY closings, and, from what I now gather, ANY decisions are made from the desk of the COO, Gary Krannaker.

Furthermore, it is my understanding that due to some bonehead in the company not following directions, Mr. Krannaker will set ALL showtimes for the ENTIRE company.

*EDITED with content removed*

[ 01-24-2005, 08:52 PM: Message edited by: Jason Black ]
 

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Posted by Jarryd Beard (Member # 2543) on 01-23-2005, 09:23 PM:
 
I accidently deleted the text of this post. My apologies.

[ 01-23-2005, 10:47 PM: Message edited by: Jarryd Beard ]
 

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Posted by Brent Neal Jones (Member # 1048) on 01-24-2005, 12:59 AM:
 
Was the post that bad?

I hear 'ya Jason. That's why I'm with the theatre I'm at now. I don't know that you can get much better than a family operation.
I've been watching and reading you for a while and I've got to ask, What in hells name is someone as smart as you doing at Carmike? !!
 

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Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 01-24-2005, 08:56 AM:
 
Well, I'm working at a single screen (c/o booth) - with a 100 person capacity - so we are not frequently mega-busy.

On Saturday we stayed open for all of our scheduled shows, knowing that people would turn up. We are within walking distance of Bowdoin College after all. And all but 2 people that came to our 9:00 show were students.
Yesterday I answered at least a dozen calls between the time we opened and the end of the first show from people in a tizzy thinking that we'd be closed. One of the last callers got a less than cheerful response to the effect of "the power's not out, so of course we're open."
 

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Posted by Jarryd Beard (Member # 2543) on 01-24-2005, 09:12 AM:
 
Sorry, I was fixing a typo in my post and the whole damn thing got deleted after accidentally highlighting the full text. I didn't have time to redo the post.

I was just reporting that we did end up closing early Saturday night. Apparently, the plow only showed up once to take care of the parking lot. This also led to some serious bitching to the landlord. There were also several major accidents in the area. I'm unsure as to whether or not the other Carmike in town closed.
 

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Posted by Brandon Willis (Member # 2345) on 01-24-2005, 11:58 AM:
 
Just saw the attendance for the other theatres in the district. We're usually #2 or #3 but all of the theatres down in Hampton Roads stayed open, so we were almost at the bottom! Theatres that usually do half our business did twice as much! Even the Short Pump 14 was pretty close to the bottom of the district.
 

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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 01-24-2005, 05:20 PM:
 
is anyone else amused by the name "short pump 14"?

carl
 

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Posted by Jason M Miller (Member # 2597) on 01-24-2005, 07:04 PM:
 
Open all day...there is not much that will close this theater
 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 01-25-2005, 07:39 AM:
 
Short Pump is the name of an area of Henrico County Va. Now a suburb of Richmond it was once the location of a tavern/hostelry at what was in the days of horsedrawn transportation the end of the first days ride to Charlottesville and points in between. The name derives from the very low hand operated well pump used to fill the horse watering trough in front of the tavern. There are photos of the tavern showing a pump mounted almost on the ground. The tavern was gone by the '20s and nobody seems to know when the "short pump" disappeared.
 

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Posted by Brandon Willis (Member # 2345) on 01-25-2005, 06:41 PM:
 
Bill, do you know what the Commonwealth 20's average attendance figures are? Is it the highest grossing theatre in Richmond or is Regal Short Pump the highest?
 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 01-26-2005, 01:23 AM:
 
Sorry Brandon but I have no idea. Both theatres are in similar locations playing the same movies, probably not much difference. They are frequently the last house in the area to drop a film.
 

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Posted by Jacob A. Velleman (Member # 2533) on 01-26-2005, 12:12 PM:
 
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[ 03-02-2005, 08:15 PM: Message edited by: Jacob A. Velleman ]
 

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Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 01-26-2005, 12:33 PM:
 
The Consolidated Commonwealth 20 grosses approximately 13.3% higher than the Regal Shortpump 14.
 

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