Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Anyone know about Republic theaters?

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Posted by Tracy Bellar (Member # 3049) on 05-16-2005, 03:33 PM:

A new theater chain has built a theater in my area. Rumours have it that they are buying the theater I'm working in. They are out of Lexington,Ky or Indiana and Illinios. Has anyone heard of them and what they are like? I suspect a guy came in my theater this weekend checking it out. I heard that when they come into a theater and buy it out, the first thing they do is fire all existing employees. They are rumoured to not carry over a single employee.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-16-2005, 04:13 PM:

http://www.republictheatres.com/resources/pages/aboutus.htm

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-16-2005, 08:54 PM:

quote: Tracy Bellar
They are rumoured to not carry over a single employee.

That's a bite! No "grandfather" clause at at all. Yet, just hope that this is just rumour sakes and not factual, for that just not right.

Yet, be kinda stupid for one company to take over another company and completely clean out house where the existing employess already know something that can help out the new ownership in operations-just have to be "retrained" to their operational policies.

-Monte

Posted by Tracy Bellar (Member # 3049) on 05-16-2005, 10:52 PM:

Well this isn't my first ride on the merry-go-round you know. I know that rumours fly when employees don't have all the info. I was just hoping others might have dealt with the company so I would get a better idea of what was going to happen.
My Dad is probably going to retire when it happens. Since I've been there off and on for 27 years I thought it might carry some weight. However, because I was related to someone in management (My Dad) I was never elegible to be a Manager. If My Dad retires I really Don't want to work with our Assistant because he's a screw-up but he is a good kiss ass so he gets in tight with the owners that appreciate a yes man that doesn't have any common sense or mechanical abilities.
I know the place would change drastically and I agree it needs to. But, When you don't know what to expect you get a little nervous. We always had a great staff until the last four to eight years. We always had a small almost family atmosphere. So a big chain would be kind of hard to get used to.
Our theater is run down a little and needs a face-lift. I hope that would be a high priority. I just wish that it would be more than superficial.
I suspect a guy that works for Republic came in and scoped the place out this weekend. He came by himself complaining about everything. our showtimes and when we shut boxoffice down after matinees. He was real late and complained that closing the B.O. after the matinee crowd was in was an inconvienence to him. This was alway our theater hours and policy to keep hours down. Complaining like this really is baseless. An employee can't do anything about it.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-16-2005, 11:48 PM:

quote: Tracy Bellar
He came by himself complaining about everything. our showtimes and when we shut boxoffice down after matinees

..wooooo! That is not a good operating procedure to have anywhere (sorry to make such a comment on this...), for I used to work at a circuit that did this practice as well, and when the Dist. Manager came through and found out about this, the manager of that theatre got such a huge heinie reaming and a severe writeup warning it wasn't funny.

For the DM simply mentioned that the B.O. NEVER shuts down at any time for any reason-this is where we make the money.

If Republic comes into your town, they might just build new, insead of fussing with remodeling something that needs remodeling.

..maybe if they do, you should try over there.

-Monte

Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 05-17-2005, 05:57 AM:

Without knowning anything about this specific company, I will say:

Anyone who fires everybody is an idiot. You can look at employee records and make someone interview to keep their job, but blindly getting rid of the old for the sake of the new is a bad policy.

Shutting down box office during business hours is retarded. I can take one box person off register and put another one on in a matter of 10 seconds. They each login under a different name and password, so the change is almost seamless. You simply prepare a starting drawer for the next person out of "change money" (that's what we call it), and take the first person's "advance" and sales to the office for counting. I would be pissed off if a cashier change at the grocery store(something I need to survive as a human) took more than 1 minute, so I fail to understand what is acceptable about it taking that long at a LUXURY (the movies).

DO NOT CLOSE DURING NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS. If my box hours are posted 11am to 10pm, I will not close for a single minute during that period; barring a power outage or government-enforced reason (bomb threat, etc.). Even if the computers fail (as happened just last week when a hard drive on the manager station died), we sell hand roll tickets with a manager on hand to record both box office and concession sales. It's all recorded by hand and verified by security camera. The bottom line is that the show must go on...

When the dust settles and the system is back up (shouldn't take more than a few hours if you use a reputable company), you ring in the sales that took place during you "down-time" and everything is cozy again. We actually lost a whole day's worth of box office and snack bar sales, but used our video and manager's logs to re-create them. We keep a back-up of each in case the distribs or tax men have a question about these days.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 05-17-2005, 08:08 AM:

Why on God's green earth would you CLOSE the box office in the middle of the day??? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Posted by Kelly Skaggs (Member # 1780) on 05-17-2005, 08:29 AM:

Back in 90, I worked at a Premiere 4 plex. We had Sat. and Sun. Matinees only at 1 an 3 Then ran our evening set at 7 and 9. We would close the box office at from 3:30 to 6:30. This was in a small town and would be lucky to do 1000 people a day.

Maybe they do not run grind, would be my guess.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-17-2005, 09:54 AM:

Believe it or not, there are many smaller theatres (4 screens or less), that do not have computerized ticketing, and therefore only sell tickets for the next show, usually 15 to 30 minutes before showtime, with the boxoffice closed inbetween.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 05-17-2005, 12:30 PM:

Why would you run 1,3 and then 7 and 9??? What a waste of payroll ... throw that 5 in there ...

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-17-2005, 12:41 PM:

Most of these places would send the employees home from 5-6:30. No payroll wasted.

I don't see any problem with closing the boxoffice until 30-60 minutes prior to the start of the next show. It wouldn't work for a gigaplex, but it is SOP in most singles. Almost none of those places have (or need or want) computerized ticketing.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-17-2005, 01:24 PM:

..or a small "mom and pop" theatre that runs a 2pm matinee on weekends, then shut down until the 7 and 9pm shows...

I can see the "dumping" the 5pm - that time set for some is a momey loser for the small theatre owners. That time is "dinner time and get home time" for quite a few people.

Kids and young adults that come to the movies at this time don't worry about this - They've ran away from home anyway (lol).

-Monte

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 05-17-2005, 01:31 PM:

We run shows 1200, 220, 445, 7 and 920(approx. times), without computerized tickets, and never close box office. Of course we have seperate Automaticket machines for the matinee and evening shows.

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 05-17-2005, 02:05 PM:

Interesting that Republic Theatres uses a logo very similar to Republic Pictures. I wonder if that is bordering on copyright infringement.

Posted by Edward Jurich (Member # 1787) on 05-17-2005, 09:22 PM:

quote: Robert E. Allen
Interesting that Republic Theatres uses a logo very similar to Republic Pictures. I wonder if that is bordering on copyright infringement.

I noticed that the EAGLE LODGE here has an Eagle for it's logo that looks exactly like the Republic Theater Eagle.

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 05-20-2005, 08:44 AM:

On a side note:

Republic Theatres is also the chain that is refusing to run the Jane Fonda Movie "Monster-In-Law".

In all the press, that fact is not mentioned. But if you go to Republic's website, you will see that the 'owner'(President of Republic)is the same guy that is quoted in the article.

Anyways....

Posted by Tracy Bellar (Member # 3049) on 05-20-2005, 01:29 PM:

Our owners policy was to send all employees, except a projectionist, home after the 3:00 show starts then employees come back at 6:00. I know this is a waste of a show and inconvienience but as employees we can't do anything about it.
I have to check equipment and watch the stand at the same time. We have the ability to sell tickets in advance now. however this hasn't changed because the owner screams to get payroll down to 150 hours per week.