Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Summer Slump in Vernon, Texas?

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Posted by Mark Farr-Nash (Member # 4233) on 07-01-2007, 12:50 PM:

This is my first outing at running a theater, and to make matters worse, I'm off all by my lonesome--the nearest theater of consequence is an hour away. So, we're IT for my town of 12,000 and several smaller communities.

This summer started with a bang: sold out shows of Spider-Man 3, Shreck 3, and Pirates 3 (and we're getting the movies on the break, too). Then, as we turned into June, I saw a dramatic drop in attendance. It's been like this for four weeks, now: Live Free or Die Hard, which should be meat and potatoes for my audience, is barely filling my house half-way.

Is this an industry-wide slump, something that happens every summer, or do I need to be looking closer to home for the answer? I'm green as a hedge in this industry, and so I would really appreciate the feedback.

Mark

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-01-2007, 01:39 PM:

It's no problem. "Live Free" is a less-popular movie than the others, it's as simple as that.

Shrek, Pirates and Spidey were all high-profile sequels whose previous chapters were massively popular, and relatively recent (within the last 5 years). The Die Hard series is so old it has whiskers, and the last installment wasn't a blockbuster, and Bruce Willis's star has been fading ever since "The Sixth Sense" (which itself was a comeback for him). The movie has the look of a desperation career move. It's getting pretty good reviews though, so legs might be OK on it.

August is usually a slower month than May/June/July, but this year could be different with a lot of really good movies coming up (Bourne, Simpsons, and even Underdog might do decent business).

Anyway, the bottom line answer is, it's not a slump; it's just that the more recent movies don't have the massive drawing power of those May sequels, hence less business.

How many screens are you running?

Posted by Mark Farr-Nash (Member # 4233) on 07-01-2007, 02:10 PM:

I'm running two screens. The Plaza was one of the last of those cavernous single screen theaters built in the early 1950s that could seat 1,000 people. It got shortened and turned into a two-screen theater in the late seventies. Now I can hold 200 per house. Pretty big for a small town, but I've got some ideas on how to fill the place.

Thanks for the comments. Obviously, there's no science to trying to pick the films that your community will want; it's just guesswork and a little luck. Or is it?

Do you think that Underdog might be good? I looked at the trailer and hated it. But, then again, I'm old enough to remember the cartoon. Kids movies do well for us, but that one looks like a real downer. Then again, I've been wrong before...

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 07-01-2007, 02:16 PM:

here is an idea you could try. pole your audience. Just give them a card with a simple question. What movie would you want to see? Give them some choices to choose from and a little area where they can list a title that may not be on the list. Take the information and compile it and go with what fits.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-01-2007, 02:19 PM:

quote: Mark Farr-Nash
Is this an industry-wide slump, something that happens every summer, or do I need to be looking closer to home for the answer? I'm green as a hedge in this industry, and so I would really appreciate the feedback.

Mark, I assume you're running the Plaza Twin Theater.

One of the things you need to do is get your movie show times up on the Internet -either through a web page of your own or at least in some of the nationwide listings like Yahoo movies. I don't know if it costs anything to do that. I did a web search and could not find any listings for your theater via Google or Yahoo. Searches for Vernon brought up theater listings for Wichita Falls, Altus and even here in Lawton.

I would also recommend submitting pictures and information to the Cinematour and Cinema Treasures websites -not to mention sending Brad Miller some pictures to post here in the pictures section.

Vernon is a tricky market, like so many small towns and rural areas. You're dealing with a slightly older than average population. So you may need to experiment with some of the kinds of movies you are showing. I think people in rural areas are even more likely to simply watch movies at home on DVD and only hit a theater when they visit a larger city. It's a tough battle.

I've seen movies geared toward older audiences draw some big crowds. Here in Lawton, movies like The Notebook have brought people to the Carmike 8 who hardly ever go to movies at all.

You might want to take a drive to a couple theaters not too far from your own and check out their operations. The Washita Theater in Cordell, OK and The Palace Theater in Canadian, TX both surprisingly have THX certification. Those are likely the smallest towns in the world with such theaters. Both are trying to play up the small town movie theater nostalgia angle while beefing up technical standards to please some of the younger crowds. The THX thing is pretty expensive though. It might not be such a bad thing just to get Dolby Digital capability in there if that is within the budget. If Carmike bothered to unload any of the hundreds of DTS and Dolby Digital processors it has just laying dormant that would help in the used parts market.

I don't know how your theater looks since I haven't been through Vernon in awhile. But sprucing up the building's appearance and interior will help if such work is needed. A good quality marquee with a decent amount of neon can do a lot to help the advertising.

Finally, the importance of customer service cannot be overstated. The combination of that and curbside visual appeal can help improve business. I think presentation quality is also tied into the customer service angle.

In the end, unfortunately, the biggest factor for your theater's business is the movies themselves and how they appeal to your specific market.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-01-2007, 02:53 PM:

You should also look at the county as a whole... not just the town you're in.

Mark

Posted by Mark Farr-Nash (Member # 4233) on 07-01-2007, 02:58 PM:

Hi Bobby,

Thanks for the thoughts. We've done most of them already; in fact, you can check out some of the work by doing a google search for the Vernon Plaza Theater (it got renamed several years ago). I'll check into getting movie times listed on Yahoo.

Currently, we post them on the website, on myspace, via the movie line, in the Thursday Vernon Daily Record newspaper, during the wednesday local radio show, and through fliers posted all over town. Oh, and there's the marquee, too, which is changed weekly. I feel like our outreach is pretty good right now.

Most of the other things have been worked on, or are in progress. We're fixing up the Cry Room, and we're trying to trade heavily on the nostalgia-vibe as well. It's nice to know that many of the things in your post have already been anticipated by us. I don't feel so bad, now.

Best,
Mark

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-01-2007, 06:04 PM:

Older people will still use the older name (....down where the Sears & Roebuck used to be....)

Also, looking at trends over a 30 year period. Big cities usually have great business all the time since there are not enough screens for the population.. Small towns are the first to suffer/last to heal in regard to downturns. Louis

Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 07-01-2007, 08:57 PM:

Mark I can understand what your going through, I help a small community theatre, The Howard, in a town about the same size as Vernon named Taylor. It is located about 30 miles northeast of Austin. You can visit them on the web at Howard Theatre They to run an old palace style theatre that was twinned in the early 70's by UA leaving them with a 212 seat and a 102 seat auditorium. They are running Dolby SR in both theatres with the Larger one also running DTS. They started off the summer with a bang and sell outs but have dropped of the past 3 weeks. This seems to be an Industry thing with the products out now.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 07-01-2007, 09:38 PM:

Get on the Rentrak website and see how you are doing compared to other theatres in your area. That will give you something to compare yourself with. - Matt

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-01-2007, 11:10 PM:

Nice looking website. (www.vernonplaza.com) But, if you watn some suggestions, here goes. (If not, stop reading here!)

It looks like it needs to be updated more often. There are month-old showtimes on there. Also, you need movie onesheet images, and synopses.

The rant about the R-rating is too long to read. Just state the rules.

You could do with some pics of the theatre on there, too. I was surprised at the popularity of our website... it gets hundreds of hits a week, here in this town of under 2000 people.

Posted by Kara J. McVay (Member # 1285) on 07-02-2007, 09:39 AM:

Do you run summer kids movies? This is a great program for us, we ask for a donation in exchange for admission and collect a lot of goods for local charties. The program is free and donations are not checked, so if you can't afford the donation, or just don't want to give that is up to you. We have already taken 2 pickup truck loads of food, and cleaning supplies to local animal shelters. What you don't make on the boxoffice you make at the concession stand. Your hours of operations seem like ours, so we run them at 11:00a.m. and again at 2:00p.m. on Tuesdays. Usually avearge 450-500 a Tuesday!

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 07-02-2007, 12:50 PM:

Mark, your not alone. The films since the May onslaught simply are not performing in the smaller towns.

For that matter I know of a couple 18 plex's that are not happy with how the product is performing this summer.

Gas prices is one problem that comes to mind. I think sequel-itis is another problem. Oceans #43 tanked out of the gate in most smaller towns for example.

Hollywood needs to stop doing so much copy cat work.

Another thing I believe is that films as whole simply are not as "good" as they were even 10-15 years ago.

Watch films from that time period and you see that directing, writing and definitely actor appeal just isn't what it used to be.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-02-2007, 01:12 PM:

quote: Mark Farr-Nash
Do you think that Underdog might be good? I looked at the trailer and hated it. But, then again, I'm old enough to remember the cartoon.

I remember the cartoon too. There are some episodes on YouTube. It has NOT aged well. The animation is painful to watch when you consider that Looney Tunes were still being produced at the same time.

We got the onesheet before the trailer and I thought it looked like, well, a dog. The trailer turned me into a semi-believer. If it has a decent story, it might do OK. Remember, kids and dogs always have fans, and this movie has a kid + multiple dogs. I think it could do pretty well.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 07-02-2007, 03:24 PM:

I think that overall June has been a little soft. Honestly, after Pirates the product was not so great until the Rat/Die Hard openings.

Rat suffered a little gross wise because of the subject matter and honestly the not that exciting looking trailers. It should hold up pretty well for several weeks if it is really as good as people say and word spreads.

Die Hard is doing solid business but it's not a mega blockbuster. $48 million in 5 days and well over $100 million total gross is good but it's not the type of performance that will be selling out like crazy.

Hopefully things will start to turn around now. I think part of the slump in June was caused by the May triple threequel's being a little disappointing to the audience. Shrek was terrible compared to the first two, Spiderman was good but had too much soap opera/too little action and Pirates was much better than #2 but we just saw the same thing 10 months before.

Posted by Mark Farr-Nash (Member # 4233) on 07-04-2007, 08:31 PM:

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback. There are some good ideas above, and some things we're doing already (or planning on doing) that dovetail nicely.

'Preciate it!

Mark