Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Showtimes on third party web sites

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 05-15-2008, 03:35 AM:

I'm taking this from the Rants about stupid customers because I think it is an important issue.

If you have any kind of programming control over your company's web site, I highly recommend creating a comma delimited feed of your showtimes to send to Cinema Source and anyone else who might be interested.

In addition to my other duties, I administer my company's web site. About 4-5 years ago we switched so that all showtimes we send out are those input into our web site. I've created a variety of schedule reports for various purposes: box office display, doing the showtimes recording, faxing to the newspaper, etc. Each has slightly different information depending on the use. I also created a comma delimited feed which is emailed directly to Cinema Source.

Since we've made these changes, we've eliminated our schedule mistakes to almost zero. In fact, the only mistake we've seen in the last year or two was the newspaper simply running the wrong ad. This includes mistakes from third party sites like Fandango and Yahoo Movies.

The reason we do everything based on the web site showtimes is so that every single source the customer has access to is from the exact same database of times. If there winds up being a discrepancy between the box office computers and the website then we default to the web times (provided it doesn't create scheduling conflicts). Once I am able to get a feed of the show times from the box office computer to output to the website, the system will be an essentially closed loop with almost no opportunity for human error - aside from putting the times in the POS computer correctly.

I also receive an email proof of the show times from NowShowing.com so that I have a chance to make changes before they publish their feeds.

Posted by Sam Cat (Member # 3532) on 06-27-2008, 05:08 PM:

Hi Justin

Like your views and your idea of a closed loop.

We are in the progress of doing something similar to what you have done.

The feed to external sites is a good idea.

And we are in the process of doing the feed to the telephone system and newspaper.
Of which we are hoping to finish by the end of the week.

I guess the question is where to start the loop.

We decided to start the loop in the programming. As we found that the programmer doing the session times on excel was being misinterpreted with some occasional mistakes being made. Then the program exports to everywhere else. Not sure if it would feed though. WHich I think is what would be needed.

Sam

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 06-27-2008, 05:42 PM:

If I understand you correctly, sending our showtimes to this Cinema Source will result in Yahoo and other third parties from displaying incorrect showtimes?

We not infrequently have to tell customers that we do not control Yahoo, and that our own website is the place to look, although we of course have people who insist that they did and that our site is wrong. This is of course impossible, since our website is interactive with our POS server, but people don't necessarily understand things.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-27-2008, 05:58 PM:

There are 2 companies that provide showtimes for the vast majority of websites - including Yahoo and others. If you just fax or email a schedule then you have to rely on someone else to input the times correctly. But if you send them a delimited file, a computer program can read those times and enter them automatically. This helps eliminate the human element that causes most of the mistakes. While I still tell customers not to go by Yahoo, I know that many do and it's in our best interest to help them be as accurate as possible. I can say that we have almost zero instances of these third party sites have the incorrect times. Usually it's just the customer reading the times incorrectly.

For what it's worth, the way I handle complaints about incorrect times is to tell the customer that if they bring me a print out of the web site or the newspaper ad showing the incorrect times, I will give them a free ticket. The only time I can ever remember a customer coming back with an ad was one time when they had the ad for another theatre. It was so gratifying to say, "yes, those times are incorrect, but that ad isn't for our theatre".

Posted by David Zylstra (Member # 4230) on 06-27-2008, 06:02 PM:

We feed to Movietickets.com which in turn feeds to Cinemasource (they do our email newsletter) and we have had some problems with yahoo showtimes having the correct times and/or notations that our website and movietickets.com display (i.e. digital, 35mm, auditoriums with rear handicap access, etc). I think it has to do with timing of how often they pull new schedules - we update changes every 15 minutes but they do not.

We also like to notate special auditoriums, 35mm, digital, RealD etc and only our internal website and movietickets.com will do it - the others like yahoo simply homogonize the listings without any other information (I've been witness to a few customer complaints about not having the shows with special pricing marked on Yahoo even though there was no "standard" pricing listed either)

I'm definitely not saying don't use them, just check up on them every now and then.

We have Internet available at our manager's desk for our managers to verify and show the customer what the web really says - I always love "that's not what it said when I looked at it".

Posted by Sam Cat (Member # 3532) on 06-27-2008, 10:41 PM:

Hi Justin

I like your thoughts. Just wondering though if you change your program eg cinema 2 to cinema 3, or change the time of movies around a little due to a mistake in the programming do you fax/email yahoo and let them know?

And I am guessing you would make the change on your website first and then feed it through to telephone, projection etc.

We found the misinterpret thing that you talked about with out staff when they get the times in excel. They still make the mistakes.

So we started our loop in the programming. Similar to probably what you have done with the website.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-27-2008, 11:12 PM:

What I do is input my times into our POS system and then I take that schedule and input it to the web site. I'm the one who does this, so I'm not depending on one of my assistants or lesser staff to do the proofing. Although the times are live on our web site as soon as I input them, I don't send them off to anyone else until I've proofed the times.

If we swap auditoriums, I don't send that information out. Since we don't do any on-line ticketing, the web sites don't really have any need for the auditorium numbers. If we discover as discrepancy between the web site and our POS system, I will adjust the POS times to match the web site - unless it's a major screw up that will cause shows to over lap. But even then, I have checks built into the web site programming to not allow show times that overlap. In fact, it generates an error message if there is less than 15 minutes between shows.

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 06-28-2008, 12:09 AM:

Our web site does not even need them input to it, it takes them directly from our POS system. This is in part because of our online ticketing, but it also guarantees that if the time is advertised wrong, it plays wrong as well. Furthermore, since our POS system has checks built in to keep shows from overlapping, no web development was needed to introduce that functionality.

Posted by Sam Cat (Member # 3532) on 06-28-2008, 12:45 AM:

ok. Because we are currently programing in excel it does not tell us our overlaps nor when we have less than 15 minutes spaces between sessions.

What program do you use to do your original program in as in work out the times, cinemas, movies and overlaps?

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-28-2008, 12:54 AM:

Our POS system is Venue by Retriever Software. You just drop the shows onto a grid and it shows them as a time line. But most movies sort of fall into place on their own. If the run time is less than about 1:55, I know it's going to be 5 shows per day with the first starting about 12:45-1:00 and the last starting at 9:30-9:50ish. Allowing 20-25 minutes between shows things basically just fall into place. What gets challenging is when you have a situation like Hancock and Wall• that are about the same length which means the times are going to basically be one on top of the other. But I must point out that I'm only running a 5-plex so it's not to hard to throw together a schedule. I would imagine it would be much more challenging with a 10+.

As far as our web site, everything is programmed in PHP using a MySQL database. When I started the programming I had taken a little bit in college so I had an idea of what I was doing but I basically just picked up a book and taught myself.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 06-28-2008, 08:47 AM:

Can you post an example of how you format the file? We are constantly dealing with the third party sites having errors.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-28-2008, 01:06 PM:

quote:
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/01/2008, 07/01/2008, | 7:45 PM | 9:50 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/02/2008, 07/02/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/03/2008, 07/03/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/04/2008, 07/04/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/05/2008, 07/05/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/06/2008, 07/06/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/07/2008, 07/07/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/08/2008, 07/08/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/09/2008, 07/09/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Hancock, 3, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/10/2008, 07/10/2008, | 12:45 PM | 3:05 PM | 5:20 PM | 7:35 PM | 9:45 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/02/2008, 07/02/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/03/2008, 07/03/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/04/2008, 07/04/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/05/2008, 07/05/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/06/2008, 07/06/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/07/2008, 07/07/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/08/2008, 07/08/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/09/2008, 07/09/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, 1, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),07/10/2008, 07/10/2008, | 12:50 PM | 3:00 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:15 PM | 9:15 PM |, ,
Paradise Cinema 7, Wall•E, 2, N, Dolby Digital (5.1),06/27/2008, 06/27/2008, | 12:30 PM | 2:50 PM | 5:10 PM | 7:25 PM | 9:30 PM |, ,

To generate this file, I just execute a script on our web site and it writes the data to a comma delimited text file and emailed to edm@cinema-source.com. If you do your times in Excel, you should be able to export a similar file. If your POS system doesn't already create a file like this, you might be able to get tech support to create one.

Posted by Sam Cat (Member # 3532) on 06-28-2008, 04:42 PM:

Hi Justin

In the feed what does the N mean?
It's just before the DOLBY DIGITAL?

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-28-2008, 05:52 PM:

I believe that field is for pass restrictions. N means no passes, Y means passes accepted. I don't recall what the final field is for, but I think they may have been place holders for information we don't use.

Posted by Sam Cat (Member # 3532) on 06-28-2008, 07:12 PM:

What about the number before the N?

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-28-2008, 07:40 PM:

The fields are as follows:
Theatre, Title, Auditorium #, Passes, Sound, Start date, End date*, times, placeholder,

*The end date is always the same as the start date, but I think it's included because they need the field. I know many of the sites display times by day, rather than listing all dates/times for the movie. It's been about 4 years since I set this up and I don't remember exactly why it's broken down on a daily basis.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 06-30-2008, 01:57 PM:

quote: David Zylstra
We also like to notate special auditoriums, 35mm, digital, RealD etc and only our internal website and movietickets.com will do it - the others like yahoo simply homogonize the listings without any other information (I've been witness to a few customer complaints about not having the shows with special pricing marked on Yahoo even though there was no "standard" pricing listed either)

David,

This is something that I'm always very much a stickler about. Of course, the actual showtimes are the most important, but I think it's also very important to my readers that the digital sound, digital cinema, and other flags are also present.

Could you check your showtimes (I'm hoping I have the correct theater for you), and let me know if there are any missing details?

http://www.bigscreen.com/Marquee.php?theater=8315

I have the same info that movietickets.com does, in regards to digital cinema and luxury auditoriums, but neither site has digital sound or stadium seating information (although movietickets.com seems to put those under an all-encompassing "this theater offers" feature list).

If there is anything missing, I will pester my contact at CinemaSource to make sure that we're getting all the data that we should be getting.

That goes for anyone else here. If there is information that we're not showing on your showtimes that you are providing, please let me know and I will pursue it!