Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Weekday vs. weekend daily showtimes

This is topic Weekday vs. weekend daily showtimes in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Gary Davidson (Member # 2198) on 03-22-2005, 02:15 PM:

How many showtimes, on average, do you schedule per screen per weekday (Monday thru Thurdsday).

How man showtimes, on average, do you schedule per screen weekends (Friday thru Sunday)?

Thanks!!!

Gary

Posted by Thomas Dieter (Member # 2507) on 03-22-2005, 02:20 PM:

the scheduals are the same for every day of every week. The first theatre that I worked for was 3-5 shows a day depending on the length of the film, 2-3 on Friday, and monday through thursday was 1-2 (one matinee, and one evening)

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 03-22-2005, 02:45 PM:

First rule, try to be predictable.

My last three theatres ran the same schedule every day of the week. Some of those theatres had special shows certain days of the week. But those shows still confuse people. Hell changing the shows on Friday confuses some people.

If your business can't support weekday matinees, at least try to make sure the prime shows happen at the same time. Nothing is worse than changing your schedule 3-4 times per week trying to optimize the showtimes. Also try not to juggle the showtimes of held over shows if you can help it.

That said, every theatres is unique and needs to adapt to changing market conditions.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 03-22-2005, 03:01 PM:

The Regal here has "winter" hours where they skip the 12 noon round on Monday thru Thursday, except they do the noon round when schools are closed (spring break for example).

"Summer" hours has a noon round every day. If there's something really big opening, they'll add a 10AM round.

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 03-22-2005, 03:26 PM:

Ok,

Friday we run the 7 & 9 o'clock sets.
Saturday we run the full matinee and evening sets.
Sunday we run full matinees and the 7 o'clock show.
Mon-Thurs all we run is the 7 o'clock round.

Not my set up but they've been doing it this was for a while and it seems to work. They really don't pull in the customers for much more then we run. The only difference I'm thinking about adding is a 5 o'clock show during the week to see how it does.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 03-22-2005, 05:02 PM:

My 14 screen:
Friday - Saturday: First Show 11:30a, last show 12:45a (6 shows)
Sunday: First Show 11:30a, last show 10:30p (5 shows)
Monday - Thursday: First Show 2:00p, last show 10:30p (4 shows)

My 8 screen
Friday - Saturday: First Show 11:30a, last show 12:45a (6 shows)
Sunday: First Show 11:30a, last show 10:30p (5 shows)
Monday - Thursday: First Show 4:00p, last show 10:30p (3 shows)

Posted by Chase Hanson (Member # 2779) on 03-22-2005, 05:11 PM:

4-5 shows per auditorium on weekdays
5-6 shows per auditorium on weekends

Baring of course, movies that have prohibitively long run times.

WE generally only write 4 distinct schedules during the week:

Mon-Thrus, Fri, Sat and Sun

During the Summer you really only need to write 3:

Mon-Thurs, Fri-Sat and Sun.

The only thing that generally disrupts this pace are mid week openings and screenings.

Posted by David L Parlier (Member # 1944) on 03-22-2005, 07:57 PM:

We generally can't support any shows later than 7 during the winter months. So, we just run 2 shows during the weekdays. We do keep all our shows grouped together at the times listed below, which helps with families wanting to go to different movies.

Monday - Thursday: 4 and 7 o'clock shows
Friday: 4, 7, and 9 o'clock shows
Saturday: 2, 4, 7, and 9 o'clock shows
Sunday: 2, 4, and 7 o'clock shows

Starting Daylight Savings Time we expanded our operating hours:

Monday - Friday: 4, 7, 9 o'clock shows
Saturday - Sunday: 2, 4, 7, and 9 o'clock shows

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 03-22-2005, 11:06 PM:

For Us:

Sun-Thurs
7:00, 9:00 sets
Fri - Sat
7:00, 9:00 and 11:00 sets

When Daylight savings time hits the times will be shifted an hour

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-22-2005, 11:31 PM:

quote: Ian Price
If your business can't support weekday matinees, at least try to make sure the prime shows happen at the same time. Nothing is worse than changing your schedule 3-4 times per week trying to optimize the showtimes. Also try not to juggle the showtimes of held over shows if you can help it.

That should be considered movie theater LAW! Even changing the prime and late shows from weekend to weekday trying to compact the showtimes an extra 20 minutes is a bad idea. All it does is make unhappy customers who use the weekend guide in the paper to make their weekday evening movie plans.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 03-23-2005, 12:33 AM:

The only schedule changes I permit in my theatre is the simple dropping of shows. In other words, write the schedule for the longest day of the week ... if you don't run Midnights on Sunday, use the same schedule as Friday/Saturday, simply DROP the shows after 10:30. Same goes for weekday matinees, simply DROP all shows before 2:00 or 4:00.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 03-23-2005, 03:50 AM:

quote: Richard Greco
When Daylight savings time hits the times will be shifted an hour

i think what you mean is that they will not be shifted an hour.

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 03-23-2005, 07:14 AM:

Carl,

Our local drive in theatre had to close after the state went with daylight savings time. There was never a 7pm as it was too light. The 9pm had to be moved to 10pm so you could see the image on the screen. 10pm is too late for a week night showing especially if it was a double feature.

When K-Mart installed lighting in their parking lot next door to the theatre, the light was so great that we had to move the screen or close. Add stray light polution to your list, EPA!

Saginaw had 3 drive-in theatres. Now there are none! [Frown]

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 03-24-2005, 07:51 PM:

Keep in mind this is a Student Cinema, but:

Monday - 5:00, 7:30, 10:00
Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday - 7:30, 10:00
Friday - 6:30, 9:15, 12:00
Saturday - 6:30, 9:15

This change sometimes as we have a lot of guest speakers before/after the show, or if the show is longer, but not by more than a half an hour. It's simple, but it works. We have a lot of people that show up citing that "I knew you were playing something @ 10:00"

Posted by Jon Morgan (Member # 3059) on 03-25-2005, 06:17 PM:

In general, I keep the same clock all week long, 4-5 showings per day every day. You would not believe the amount of people who cannot understand that the times a film played on Saturday aren't neccessarily the same as the times it plays on Tuesday. Some people can't even get that whole "different movies each Friday" thing.