Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Did Debate Affect Your Box Office?

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Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 10-03-2008, 10:23 AM:

At the risk of delving into the forbidden politics topic, I'm just curious to know if/how "the big debate" last night affected your business.

It was DEAD at "my" theater(s)!

You could have fired a shotgun in any one of our auditoriums and most likely not hit one of the few people there.
(I'll have to try this during next weeks' debate [Big Grin]

)

I joked with my boss that we probably could have made more money by letting people in for free to watch the debate on the big screen & just selling concesssions.

And there was probably more truth than scarcasim in my statement.

Did anyone else have a big fall-off in business last nite?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-03-2008, 10:42 AM:

Since many of our patrons are old people, the answer is clearly YES. Maybe not much on Thursday, but last Friday definitely.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 10-03-2008, 12:39 PM:

Yes, we sold it out! Alternate content FTW.

Posted by Rob Baker (Member # 4546) on 10-03-2008, 02:55 PM:

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

We're televising the debate on Tuesday on our single screen. It's sponsored by a national interest group (name withheld because I'm not sure what constitutes advertising). They are paying for free popcorn and soda. I'm expecting a tremendous turn out.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 10-03-2008, 03:39 PM:

We've shown both convention acceptance speeches, and both debates so far. We are planning to show the remaining debates.

We've found that these do excellent, usually filling most of our seats. We also decorate the lobby and auditorium in red white and blue. The LED sconces we use have individual color control, and are also set to red and blue.

In concessions we offer Sandwiches and other things we wouldn't usually sell.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-03-2008, 06:18 PM:

What are the rights issues with doing something like this? Who owns the rights to the broadcast of the "debates" (term used loosely), anyway?

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 10-03-2008, 08:03 PM:

Fox News reported the highest rating for an evening in the history of the channel

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-04-2008, 12:28 AM:

We were definately impacted by the Presidential debate last Friday - plus two big HS football games, but the VP debate last night didn't have much impact. In fact, Thursday was actually up a bit over Wednesday.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 10-04-2008, 03:44 AM:

Apparantly 70 million people watched the VP debate, that's a record.

We're dead as shit anyway so no way to tell.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-04-2008, 04:37 AM:

quote: Dustin Mitchell
Apparantly 70 million people watched the VP debate, that's a record.

If a similar televised debate were to be held here, between Brown and Cameron, never mind just the deputies, I suspect that it would result in one of the largest switch-offs in history; things are obviously quite different over there.

I was in New Jersey just a few days before the '04 election, and there did seem to be far more interest in such things than there is here. Personally, I couldn't even name the deputy leaders of any of our parties now, nor even the leaders of any but the two largest ones. I think he same would apply to many other people here.

Posted by Kat Baggett (Member # 1154) on 10-04-2008, 10:38 PM:

My little 3 screener went from 124 on Wednesday night to 15 on Thursday night...so I think there was a definite impact.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 10-05-2008, 06:49 PM:

Yes, definitely both debates hurt here.