If I Ran Movie Theaters, Here's What I'd Do [video] | Hacker News Reader

If I Ran Movie Theaters, Here's What I'd Do [video]

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I work at keeping our small town single screen theater going. So, my experience is from a viewpoint of that, not from some mega 24 screen behemoth that some of his rules could apply to better.

01 - We enforce. Mostly. During kids movies, having a kids being noisy is going to happen.

02 - Lol. We have 0 leverage on this. Though, we charge $7 adult, $5 kid/senior, $5 matinee.

03 - We run about 20 minutes of ads. Which end at the time the movie starts. If the marquee says we start the movie at 7 pm, we start the movie at 7 pm. We get a lot of people showing up at 10 after and being like "when does the movie start" and when you say "10 minutes ago" get frumpled.

04 - We do this as much as we can. But he is talking to producers once again, not theaters, for most of his suggestions.

05/06 - Our booker contract says since we have 1 screen, we may only have 1 movie each week. Most big movies, we have to keep in screen for 2 to 3 weeks. He does talk about this in 02 a little. This destroys us. It would be great to do a kids movie matinee on Sat morning/afternoon and an adult one in the evening. But this is totally out of our control.

For this specifically, Disney is the absolute draconian worst at enforcing all of this. We have had to drop getting some big blockbusters because of stupid ass crap like "You need to show this movie no less than 12 times opening week and 8 times a week for the next 3 weeks after that." What movie was that.. crud, it was a big one from this summer. That would basically be 2 showings for about 120 people and then 10 showings for like 10 people at most or 0 at expected.

07 - Not a theater problem, talk to distribution.

08 - WE FREAKING WISH WE COULD DO THIS. Not theater problem, talk to the NFL.

09 - I thought theaters did this. There are automatic curtain adjust systems.

10 - Done every weekend already.

Video summary:

01. Enforcement of movie theater policies (talking, using smartphone)

02. Lower the ticket price (complicated because of studio leverage - explained in the video)

03. Fewer ads and trailers

04. Make it special (only available in the theater)

05. Have some fun (special screenings)

06. More variety (of movies)

07. Embrace streaming in the movie theaters (e.g. drop earlier before streaming on TV)

08. Change with times (sports, live events) [1]

09. Mask the screen (mask the screen to the correct film aspect ratio)

10. Share the love

Not mentioned in the video, but mentioned in the comments: dim projection and even dead pixels.

[1] This is already happening at some movie theaters - showing arts performances of concerts, plays, opera, ballet

I would go almost the exact opposite on some of these. Offer smaller theaters with family style seating designed for a single group, and allow a much larger selection of movies beyond just what’s “out now”.

And have larger theaters perhaps with the rules suggested, but those should each have their own restrooms where the movie is piped in to TVs above each urinal or opposite each toilet. Never miss a thing.

I've always thought there was a massive opportunity to play live sports, e-sports tournaments, football games etc in the cinema.

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