State of The Moxie #1 - September 2005
Written by Dan
I'm sure many of you were waiting for a post like this one. Lying in bed night after night, you'd stare at your ceiling and wonder, "when will Dan write a post - I mean a real post - about the inner workings of The Moxie? You know, like how many people attended, how well each movie did, and junk like that. When, ceiling, when?" Perhaps your ceiling answered you back. Perhaps not. Either way, your pseudo-prayers have been answered. I give you:
State of The Moxie #1 - September 2005
Before I jump into the details, let me hash out a few definitions for you.
- Weeks - Weeks to us are not the same as weeks to most typical movie theaters. The majority of multiplexes premiere movies on Fridays, with the occasional holiday fare appearing on any given night of the week. Here at The Moxie, we premiere our films on Wednesdays. In the early days, people would turn out in force on Wednesday evenings to catch the newest flick we happened to be showing... now everyone hates us, so they don't come at all. *sigh* Ha ha! Just kidding! Or am I? Point being, our weeks go from Wednesday to the following Tuesday.
- Goal (aka Gold) - A good night means we've hit "goal." Goal is 25 people per show. If a certain day has three showings, then goal is... ? That's right: 75 people! If we hit goal, everyone's happy, if we don't, everyone's fired. Simple as that.
- Split / Solo weeks - If only one movie is playing over a week's time, it's a solo week. If two or more movies are playing, it's a split week. Sometimes solo weeks are sprinkled with special showings that are only played for a few nights (i.e. local films, weekend late night films, mid-week specials).
That's about it. If you can't pick up the rest of my jargon, you should serioulsy consider reading through the archives. Now, are we ready? Woo hoo! Let's go!!!
WEEK 1 - September 21 - 27
Movies: ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW
We: 119 (75 goal) = +44
Th: 42 (75 goal) = -33
Fr: 88 (100 goal) = -12
Sa: 117 (125 goal) = -8
Su: 37 (100 goal) = -63
Mo: 15 (75 goal) = -60
Tu: 24 (75 goal) = -51
Week: 442 (625 goal)
Opening week was an exciting one... at least on opening day. There were several points during the week when Nicole and I thought, "Shit!" Then we remembered that we'd only been open for seven days and barely 2% of our target audience knew about us. Patience, as it seemed, was the key. Still, it really hurt to only get 15 on that first Monday... an all-time low record that would stand until last Thursday. Damn you snow. Damn you to hell!
Other than the basic numbers, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW seemed to be a good choice for an opening movie. It was low-budget enough to be considered an indie, and quirky enough to be completely different from anything else playing in Springfield. The audience reaction was good to moderately good.
WEEK 2 - September 28 - October 4
Movies: ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, MURDERBALL, and ROCK N' ROLL SPACE PATROL
We: 57 (75 goal) = -18
Th: 32 (75 goal) = -43
Fr: 119 (100 goal) = +19
Sa: 109 (125 goal) = -16
Su: 44 (100 goal) = -56
Mo: 36 (75 goal) = -39
Tu: 118 (75 goal) = +43
Week: 515 (625 goal)
Patterns started to emerge during week two. First, it was obvious that Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays were way off goal. Secondly, Sunday evening shows were a HUGE waste of money because very few people showed up, and even if they did we couldn't serve alcohol, which put a serious dent in our concession profit. By the end of our second week it was painfully obvious that something had to be done about the slow days. Unfortunately for us, October's schedule had already been set in stone, which meant we were stuck in the same show pattern as September. Late Sunday movies would have to continue until November.
As for the movies, ME AND YOU played the week out to weak attendance while MURDERBALL brought in all kinds of people. Everyone loved MURDERBALL (how can you not?), and it brought it a lot of new faces... although, to be honest, 90% of our audience would've been considered "new faces" at this point. ROCK N' ROLL SPACE PATROL, our first locally-made film, became our first sell out crowd on Tuesday, October 4th. It was AWESOME! To this day, all of our sell out crowds have been for locally-made films. Hmm.
After two weeks, here's how our first two films fared:
- ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW: 515 tickets over 31 shows (17 per show)
- MURDERBALL: 380 tickets over 18 shows (21 per show)
- ROCK n' ROLL SPACE PATROL: 75 tickets over 1 show (75 per show)... duh!
So that wraps it up for Septemeber 2005. I'll be back soon with a recap of October, followed by November, and then, if I'm feeling particularly frisky, I might even throw in the first few weeks of December! Ow! HOTT! Now when you're laying in bed at night you can look at the ceiling, contemplate our weekly numbers, and wonder how we're able to stay open. HINT: we don't pay ourselves... and we only eat popcorn.