Cinemas to Offer More Niceties

While studios reconsider release windows, theater owners are looking to make the moviegoing experience more personal and special.

Kid packs. No commercials. Free popcorn. Live entertainment. Wine and beer. 21-plus screenings. No cell phones. Reserved seating.

Those are a few of the amenities exhibitors are testing in order to lure customers into cinemas.

...theater owners can't become complacent. They need to continually raise the bar and think competitively, as they did in the 1950s to battle television. The dramatic drop in attendance in the postwar era gave rise to 3-D, CinemaScope and giveaways (of everything from dishes to sewing machines).

``Last year's drop in attendance carried over to us,'' acknowledged Paul Gunsky, owner of San Jose's small CineLux chain, which offers free popcorn on Thursday and $5 admission on Tuesday. ``Because we don't have 20 screens, we're playing up the neighborhood experience.''

Glenn Lovell from Mercury News has the story and the side-bar about recycling mid-century box office incentives. Check out digger reactions to the pieces. [posted by Sheigh]

(Photo note: The gentleman in front is toying with his cell, someone behind him is recording the movie with a handicam and in the last row a patron is mummified. That about sums it up.)

Comments

[karina]

Photo note = hilarious.

[Wallace Dorian]

Again, as stated in my comment to the longtail piece below, movie theatres are not what they used to be. They need content and reserved-seat roadshow status thus elimintaing 75% of movie houses in America to make way for the new and innovative electronic and digital future of new movie-goers who demand change and a higher consciousness of moviemaking.

[make money]

Well written mate