The Man-CHAIR-ian Candidate
Written by Dan
So, the cat's out of the bag, and the Moxie is going to have standard theater seating. You're probably wondering "Why Dan? Why? You'd promised us sofas and big soft chairs, not tiny theater seats! Is there no god?" Well, let me try to answer this as best I can:
Our auditorium is incredibly small - I can't stress this enough. We're talking 35 by 16 feet of usable space, and since our viability as a business and a theater depends on the number of seats we can fill, the auditorium dictates nearly every design choice we make. It made me go buy it some cheese yesterday. Twice.
Seating capacity - Here's the bottom line: with sofas and plush chairs, we're looking at a potential capacity of between 40 and 50 people... if that. You have to remember that sofas are not only wide, but they're deep too. The deeper the sofa, the more distance we have to put between rows. The more distance between rows, the fewer rows we can have. It's a vicious cycle. How can I compromise putting in a couch that holds three when I know that the same space can easily hold four customers in theater seats? I can't.
Operating costs per seat - Operating at an average occupancy of 40% per annum, each and every seat we put in the auditorium is equal to roughly $3,000 in gross profits. With 40 seats, we'd be lucky to stay open for half a year. With 50 seats, we'd have to sell out nearly every single weekend show (a very difficult task) to turn a profit. With more than 60 seats, the Moxie would (should) be self-sufficient enough that we will be able to turn enough of a profit to pay our employees a decent wage and put food on the table.
So where does that leave us? Well, we have two scenarios: Use sofas and chairs and give our customers a comfortable six month's worth of movie-going fun before we have to close our doors, OR use theater seats, stay viable, make a profit, and eventually upgrade to a larger building with 2 or 3 screens and plenty of room for sofas and chairs... or at least really plush theater seat rockers. The choice is rather obvious, don't you think?
Think of the distributors - Distributors laugh at small theaters. They mock them. They harass them. They don't give them preferential treatment. If a 600 seat theater and a 50 seat theater want the same movie, who do you think is going to win? Unfortunately for us, the distribution industry isn't run on likability. It's run on numbers, and bigger numbers equal bigger money. Simple as that. Every seat we add to our total capacity helps us look that much more legit to the big wigs in LA and NYC.
Don't get me wrong, I'm disappointed that we couldn't have sofas and chairs too, but for right now, for this space, they just won't work. That's something we have to deal with. I hate, hate, HATE corporate mantras and metaphors, but one of them seems quite fitting here, "you have to learn to choose your battles. You can't win them all." I feel dirty just saying that.
On a final note, several of you have voiced your concern over the ability of larger customers being able to fit in our seats. That's a very real problem, but we've had numerous people sit in the chair sample - from tall gangly types like me to shorter more rotund body types (250lbs and up) - and none of them seem to have any difficulty sitting down or getting out of the chairs. I ask them, "do you think you'd be comfortable in that seat for a two hour movie?" and they all answer in the affirmative.
Still, if any of our customers have problems with the chairs, we'll have several armless varieties that can be placed in the handicap sections. That may sound callous and embarrassing for the individual who has to request the armless chair, but what other alternatives do we have? None that I could think of.
So that's that. I don't mean to sound condescending or snippy, I'm just telling it like it is. Buffer off.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot the m
ost important part... using theater seats, we'll be able to fit between 73 and 76 people in the auditorium with staggered seating. Nicole and I were thinking the capactiy would be in the low 60's, so when we heard the final chair count, we both passed out. That's it.