A night of unusual occurences.

Tonight was one of 'those' nights where things seem to happen weirdly. I was projectionist tonight. I ran the first show (Boy in Striped Pajamas ) with no problems. I threaded up for the late show (The Spirit) and was about to go back out to the lobby when I realized I should check what time the late show hit credits so I'd be back in the booth to turn up the lights. Comparing what times the two movies hit credits I realized Spirit was longer than Boy. I happened to look at the films sitting on the platter on my way back out of the booth and realized something looked odd. As the films are in a circular pattern on the platter the longer films form bigger circles. The smaller film was threaded up. It turned out I had threaded up Boy again rather than threading up Spirit. I haven't done that in years.

And it's almost as if fate was telling me that I didn't need to bother threading up the Spirit, we had no one show up for the late show?! I wasn't completely surprised, we only had 7 people Sunday night and Monday is often, but not always, quieter than Sunday. We haven't had a no show in about two years.

So we waited 10 minutes in case anyone showed up late then packed up. I got to leave a couple hours early which was kinda nice.

An example of the unpredictability of the movie business.

There are general patterns within the movie business and particular to each theatre. Western Film has some general patterns. Movies that cater to adults sell less food, movies that cater to students tend not to do well late show Saturday night etc.

One normal pattern is that the late show on Sunday is pretty dead. Especially if the film hasn't been really busy. Last night my staff figured the late show of Superbad would be quiet so they didn't even bother to make any more popcorn. This is a decision I would have agreed with. Friday and Saturday it did about 30-40 each show. Not bad for the second week of a film. Based on that I would have predicted about 10-15 people for Sunday's show.

Needless to say they were surprised when 77 people showed up.