Changes in attendance patterns

I've noticed a couple things over the summer I thought were interesting. They may or may not continue during the school year.

Fewer Children to kid's movies. - Even for UP which was a big hit most of the attendance was adults, the other kid's movies we played didn't do great. The matinees just barely broke even. I was planning to play ICE AGE 3 but I don't think I will now. I don't think adults want to see it enough.

Yet more spreading out of business over the nights. - When I first started at Western Film we had a fairly standard pattern, busy weekends and discount Tuesday, the rest of the week was fairly quiet. Over the last few years it spread out until most nights were at least somewhat busy. This summer it got even weirder. Sunday and Monday were often busier than Friday or Saturday?! Tuesdays aren't as busy but sometimes Wednesday or Thursday are busier than Tuesday.

During the school year I attributed this to more night classes plus students going out to other places on the weekends. For the summer I think it's people going away or whatever on the weekend and seeing the movies during the week. I kinda like this trend, it takes the same number of staff to man the theatre for 10 people or 60. If we get the same number of people spread over more nights then we have less problems with lineups or the theatre getting too crowded and people not getting to sit where they want.

In very general terms people seem to be willing to see films they haven't heard a lot about but have heard are good. I'm not sure how much this affects it but a couple people have said they decided to see a film because we were playing it on the assumption that it must be good. It makes sense, as a single screen theatre I'm not going to play a film that isn't good if people also haven't heard of it. I only play bad films that were big hits (I'm looking at you Twilight).

Comparison between 2 movies for booking.

One thing I keep mentioning is how the attendance and hence booking patterns for Western Film are different from almost any other theatre. To illustrate this I'm going to compare two films.

FAST AND FURIOUS- $70 million dollar opening (biggest April opening ever), $153 million total box office, 4th in a series, some fairly well known names although Vin Diesel and Paul Walker aren't as big as they used to be. High awareness. Did about $500 for the week at Western Film which is quite low for us.

SUNSHINE CLEANING-$219,000 opening in 4 theatres, $11 million total, original, not a sequel or remake, some lesser but still well known names but on the way up (Amy Adams, Emily Blunt). Low awareness. Did almost $800 for the week, still low but not bad.

Seems counter intuitive doesn't it? This is a general pattern at Western Film although it does have exceptions. The Dark Knight was still one of the highest grossing films at Western Film.

There's several reasons I think this occurs-
For many movies the audience who wants to see them go see them first run, this is why Western Film doesn't play horror films and most smaller action films. In many cases they don't want to wait until WF plays the film even if we are cheaper.

Part of it is timing, it depends on the time of year the film plays.

Smaller movies aimed at adults can do well here. Adults are more likely be willing to wait and/or want to see it for less money. Western Film is also less busy and crowded. Although I wouldn't mind seeing that change.

Smaller films often don't play in theatres much. Sunshine played for a couple weeks at the Westmount, F&F played at all the theatres in the city.

By the time WF gets a film word of mouth has spread and if it's bad it will affect us. The opposite effect can occur with good word of mouth for the smaller films that start in the bigger cities then spread out from there.

Being a University theatre our primary market is a more intellectual and discriminating group. They are more likely to take a chance on something that looks different. They are also less likely to seek out out only escapist fare.

The best example I can give is Hotel Rwanda. It was the biggest grossing movie at WF the year it came out however it did only $20 million in overall box office.

Change in attendance patterns over time.

As the title implies there have been some change over the last few years in the attendance pattern at Western Film. This post was prompted by a commenter who mentioned how full the theatre seemed on a recent Tuesday. The theatre was actually only about 1/3 full. (130 patrons). When I first started in 200o Western Film had the same patterns most theatres had. Busy weekends and Tuesday, quiet other nights. We actually used to sell out the theatre on a regular basis for Tuesday. A few times we turned away as many as 150 people.

We used to have no-shows (no customers) on a regular basis on Monday. At certain times of the year on Sunday and Monday we could use only two staff instead of the usual 3.

The patterns gradually changed for the reasons I will postulate below. Note, I'm talking patterns not total attendance.

Most theatres stopped having a discount Tuesday so the concept wasn't as familiar to everyone any more.
The Internet, DVD etc has widened people's entertainment options so they didn't just come on the weekends.

I think this is the big one- additional night classes. The number of night classes has been steadily increasing which moves people around. Someone who has a Tuesday night class has to go another night to see the 7:00 film. Conversely a lot of people are on campus for night classes go to a late show afterward. My staff is kind of a microcosm of this, I have been having steadily more nights being booked off for classes and literally have had to hire because I was short staffed certain nights. This term I can only schedule three people on Thursday instead of the usual four because so many have night classes.

So over time business has spread out. Tuesday is still the busiest night but seldom sells out. Friday and Saturday are still busy. Sunday and Monday are unpredictable but we need three staff and have only had a couple no-shows in the last couple years.

Wednesday and Thursday have become very busy nights, often busier than the weekend. In another example of a pattern changing. Wednesday used to be really busy relative to Thursday. I would usually put 4 staff on Wednesday and 3 on Thursday. A couple years ago the pattern changed and Thursdays became the busy night. Now they have evened out which I'm attributing to an increased number of Thursday night classes.

Overall we are getting about the same number of people but spread out over the whole week. I have to admit I don't miss sell-outs, there were not fun at all.