Feast, famine, or somewhere in between
Written by Dan
The theater business, perhaps unlike any other industry in the whole of the universe, is especially prone to the "feast or famine" business cycle. For those of you who don't know what that means, here's a brief tagline: you're either making money, or you're not.
All businesses have high and low points, of course, but they tend to be accentuated by sloping trends. They're either building up for the holiday season, or winding down in preparation for Summer. In other words, they can sense coming trends... for the most part. We're lucky if we're able to guess whether next week will be better than this one. It's a lot tougher than you'd think to figure out customer trends. Unfortunately for us, it's not as easy as simply bringing in a good movie; if that were the case, we'd be busy ALL THE TIME! We have to factor in the time of day, weather, other downtown events, positive buzz, negative buzz, parking, TV schedules, etc., etc., etc.. The more variables you have to deal with, the less likely it is for you to be able to estimate your audience.
Exhibit A - here's what our attendance look liked during the first year:
Click to enlarge, fool!
Notice anything (other than the continual ups and downs)? If a gun was put to your head, and you were told to point out an over-arching trend, could you? I mean, seriously! The theater business is like dating someone with bipolar disorder: one week they're doing great and everyone's happy, the next week you're getting punched in the ribs for moving around too much in bed. It's been a challenge to keep on top of things, but as always we're forging ahead with the gleeful willingness of a Texas beef cow.
Oh, and in case you're wondering about the colored lines on the graph - the green line represents what we consider an average week, the red line represents what ended up being our statistical average week, and the blue line is what we have to cross for us to consider it a good week. Make sense? Good. And now, for some interesting trivia from year uno:
Most total tickets sold
1. AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
2. TRANSAMERICA
3. BROKEN FLOWERS
4. HOMEMADE HILLBILLY JAM
5. THE ARISTOCRATS
6. BRICK
7. THE MATADOR
8. THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
9. SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC
10. KISS KISS, BANG BANG
Most average tickets sold per show
1. AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
2. HOMEMADE HILLBILLY JAM
3. ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM
4. WHY WE FIGHT
5. NIGHTWATCH
6. TRANSAMERICA
7. STRANGERS WITH CANDY
8. THE ARISTOCRATS
9. SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC
10. EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED
You might notice that the lists change pretty dramatically. BROKEN FLOWERS is our third highest ticket seller, but it doesn't even land in the top ten for average tickets sold per show, which I feel is the truest indication of a films performance. The reason behind this discrepancy is that some of our films were given an ungodly amount of showings (for instance, BROKEN FLOWERS had 46 screenings), which made it easier for them to amass large amounts of tickets. Yet when you take the attendance total and divide it by the number of shows, the average tickets sold aren't that impressive. Either way, it's going to be a long time before another film knocks AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH off the throne. If our films were baseball players, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH would be Albert Pujols.
Now, let's look at the other side of the scale. If I'm going to flash the top films, I might as well pull my pants down and show you the losers too. It's only fair.
Least total tickets sold (5 showings or more)
1. BROTHERS OF THE HEAD
2. HEAVEN ON EARTH
3. BE HERE TO LOVE ME: A FILM ABOUT TOWNES VAN ZANDT
4. L'ENFANT (THE CHILD)
5. WASSUP ROCKERS
6. ROAD TO GUANTANAMO
7. LOGGERHEADS
8. THE BOYS OF BARAKA
9. KEKEXILI: MOUNTAIN PATROL
10. FIND ME GUILTY
Least average tickets sold per show
1. BROTHERS OF THE HEAD
2. ROAD TO GUANTANAMO
3. THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL
4. THE HEART OF THE GAME
5. DUCK SEASON
6. WASSUP ROCKERS
7. FIND ME GUILTY
8. BUBBLE
9. L'ENFANT (THE CHILD)
10. THE BOYS OF BARAKA
What's interesting to note here is that our two worst performing films, BROTHERS OF THE HEAD (#1) and ROAD TO GUANTANAMO (#2), played during the same week (OUCH!). Also, DUCK SEASON (#5) and FIND ME GUILTY (#7) played in the same week, which also happened to be finals week (DOUBLE OUCH!). As you can see, neither the best films nor the worst films share much in common. The best example of a good movie performing poorly is JUNEBUG... hands down. We literally had hundreds of people asking us if we were going to show it, the film was generating tons and tons of good reviews, Amy Adams was already garnering Oscar buzz, yet no one showed up. Thanks a lot DECEMBER! Luckily, we've learned from our mistakes, so this year we're planning on closing the theater from Thanksgiving to Christmas... NOT! We'll see how things shape up this time around.
Ok, that about does it for this post. It's a beautiful early Fall day outside, which means it'll probably be slow today... or maybe not. In this business, you can never tell.
