March Madness
Written by Dan
Fact: weekday matinees are deadly slow - usually bringing in less than 10 people. In the beginning we thought a 4:30 show would attract the older, retired crowd and a few wayward college students with lopsided class schedules. Our first quarter statistics told a very different story. As it turns out, most people are working during our matinee shows, and those that aren't working are doing something that doesn't include coming to our theater. Let's look at the hard numbers:
+ Weekday Matinees, excluding Friday, average about 10 people per show... and that's being generous. Tickets are matinee price ($5.00), which means we make $50 per showing. Take away our typical 40% to 50% distribution fee, and we've made about $27 per matinee showing.
+ Predictably, concessions are also the lowest during matinees - hovering in the neighborhood of $12 to $15 combined. The low turnout obviously contributes greatly to the pitiful concession take, but so does the time of day. Most people are gearing up for dinner, so why would they ruin their appetite with popcorn?
So each matinee showing, Monday through Thursday, brings in roughly $40. Not very impressive, eh? I bet you can see where this is leading... March is going to be a little light in the matinee department. Four matinee slots, Monday through Thursday, are taking a month-long vacation in March. They might come back in April, or they might not. Obviously, if a movie is big enough, or geared towards the older demographic, then we might toss a few extra matinees out there, but otherwise... it's just not worth our time.
This isn't the first time we've pruned back showtimes either. If you remember correctly, we dropped the Sunday late show (9:00 slot) way back in November, and our Sunday numbers increased as a result. Will the same thing happen for our already dismal weekday numbers? Only time will tell. And speaking of time, it looks like we're going to have a few extra hours on our hands during the week. What should we do with all this new found freetime? Start another business? Sleep later? Eat lunch AND dinner? Or, as my mom suggested, get a "real" job? Who knows. The endless opportunities boggle the mind.
In final support of our decision, you'd think our newest movie, DUMA, would be a good choice for a weekday matinee. What with it being a family-friendly, highly-acclaimed film from a respected director, we thought it might very well entice more than our average 10 people for today's matinee. Can you guess how many we had? One. And he's not even a kid. In fact, he had no idea what DUMA was about. He occasionally drops by to see a movie, regardless of what's playing, simply because, in his own words, "he wants to support our theater and be surprised by our film selection." That's the spirit!
Now I sound bitter and resentful, of which I'm neither. I better stop writing before it's too late. To make amends, maybe I'll finally get around to posting December's numbers tomorrow. That'll put everyone in a good mood!
