Monday, July 28, 2008

Unpredictable Matinees

I've been experimenting with matinees a little this summer. I normally only run matinees for kid's films but I noticed at the first two we did this summer there were a lot of adults coming. That's why I decided to try running matinees of Sex and The City last week. It worked pretty well, attendance was good. I did just one show at 2pm.
So based on this and the earlier matinees I didn't hesitate to book Indiana Jones in for matinees.

Naturally this business had to prove it's unpredictability again. The Friday and Saturday night shows were the busiest we've been since school let out. It's already done more in two days than some movies do all week. However the matinees were shockingly quiet in comparison. I went in to drop off some supplies after the first matinee started Saturday and when my staff said there were only a few people in the theatre I thought they were joking.

I wonder if the start times might be an issue, the 1:15 was too early and the 4:00 too close to dinner.
Thankfully attendance picked up some, Sunday is usually busier than Saturday. Overall the matinees for Indiana broke even staff costs wise but only because I worked Sunday.

The matinees for Kung-Fu Panda should do well and it's shorter so the start times may be more convenient.

The next issue will be what to do when I play a mid-range film like Get Smart, do I run matinees or not?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If I want to see a movie, I would rather see it on a Saturday night than Saturday afternoon.