Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold • Hacker News Board

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#111

Post by dnnddidiej » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:07 AM UTC

fho wrote: post #99

c0_0p_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days that's probably true, but when a projectionist needed to roll the film and babysit the equipment I doubt it would be worthwhile. Not to mention that film rolls do wear out overtime.

One of my student jobs was to transport film spools to theaters. They would arrive at my door in a box, I would walk them to the cinema on a small trolley and spend 2-3 hours in the projection rooms. The reels were spliced on site by a technician, projected, cut again and I transported them back home where they would be picked up again. The job was less to transport the spools, but to supervise that there was no copy…

Wow. Was there any premier viewings on the spools you moved?

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#112

Post by dnnddidiej » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:09 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #2

Do enough people buy tickets in advance now that this really indicates anything of value? I'm old and have never pre-purchased a movie ticket in my life. I assume a lot of people do, but the few times I've been to the movies lately, it seems people are buying tickets at the theater.

A mix. Prebuying is useful for your Barbie or Oppenheimer. Also good idea for kids birthday parties.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#113

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:21 AM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #55

HerbManic wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only film I saw in an empty theater was 'The Death of Stalin'. That was kind of odd but a decent film regardless.

On the one hand Its fun to watch movies alone on a big screen. My area of NJ apparently could care less about movies like Knock Down The House(Biography of AOC and other house candidates), Navalny (Movie about the murdered politician opposing Putin), The Imitation Machine: Movie about Alan Turing or Last Night in Soho (A wonderful Edgar Wright thriller) On the other hand, I feel sad that no one in my region seems to…

I have seen too many video projects that were supposed to be non fictional either have fictional material or a misleading slant such that I would not consider it a good use of my time.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#114

Post by simiones » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:23 AM UTC

ap99 wrote: post #110

vlovich123 wrote: post #108

To me this suggests that theater’s are at least partially incorrectly pricing things which explains why they are struggling.

But aren't they pricing based on how much it costs to show the film? Which in turn is how much the studios and distributors pay to make/market the film? Which is in turn driven by costs... Which are basically large bets on if a piece of art will have mass appeal.

It makes no sense from a classical economics perspective to keep the theater empty. Even if no one is buying at the break-even price, it can make sense to sell below cost just to recoup some of the investment - and adjust the investment in the future, of course.

Now, in reality there are second-hand effects, of course - like people getting adjusted to the below-cost ticket prices and being even less incentivized to buy at the normal price.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#115

Post by hypendev » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:25 AM UTC

kleiba2 wrote: post #75

When I lived in Germany, I had an apartment in the vicinity of three tiny arthouse theaters. I used to go there all the time by myself because you could basically walk to all three of them. Saw a lot of movies I would have never seen otherwise, most of which I don't remember at all. The theaters were never full. So it was basically just like watching a movie in your own living room. Yeah, except maybe for the handful…

Is this maybe in Hamburg? :)

Back in the heyday, I used to work in a startup devoted to the cinema world, where with one app you could buy tickets for all cinemas - even those that did not "officially" support it.

Among them were arthouse theaters in Hamburg, which I often used for testing, as most of the time reserving a few seats would not matter as they would be empty, at least during the day. Some of them had projections of old movies, and I was like "if I lived there, I'd go every day".

Ironically, now I live between 2 art cinemas in my city and rarely go to any of them :)

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#116

Post by malthaus » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:26 AM UTC

kleiba2 wrote: post #75

When I lived in Germany, I had an apartment in the vicinity of three tiny arthouse theaters. I used to go there all the time by myself because you could basically walk to all three of them. Saw a lot of movies I would have never seen otherwise, most of which I don't remember at all. The theaters were never full. So it was basically just like watching a movie in your own living room. Yeah, except maybe for the handful…

yorck unlimited made living in berlin 10x as exciting

but you could always be sure that the old lady loudly crunching on every.single.crisp. was there in the showing as well

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#117

Post by technothrasher » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:27 AM UTC

jmalicki wrote: post #98

thrownthatway wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> different for flights Maybe. Depends. I’m sure I’ve heard of the low cost carriers cancelling flights that are under-sold at the last minute. Would make sense if the destination has fewer tickets sold from there .

During COVID a lot of empty flights flew because otherwise the airline could lose the gate slots.

I once flew on a flight from ORD to ROC where I was the only passenger. It was very, very weird to be in a big empty cabin all by myself. The flight attendant just came and did the safety briefing sitting next to me. I asked her why they didn't just cancel the flight, and she said the plane had to be in ROC for the next morning anyway. This was in the 1990s though. I've never encountered anything like that since.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#118

Post by maxglute » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:32 AM UTC

brailsafe wrote: post #106

maxglute wrote: post #78

On flip side had switch gyms to be among strangers becomes turning on gym socialization really tanked my training.

> On flip side had switch gyms to be among strangers becomes turning on gym socialization really tanked my training. I think you're in the wrong "actually I prefer to be alone in social spaces" thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48007438

Thank you!

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#119

Post by drcongo » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:35 AM UTC

hawkice wrote: post #104

soco wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arthouse is the only thing worth watching nowadays as the others seem to only rechew the same crud. Change my mind.

Cud, I think, is the thing that gets rechewed.

I've seen Marvel movies and I think "crud" was the better word choice.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#120

Post by p0w3n3d » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:44 AM UTC

I remember walking in late to a movie with my wife and noticing that there was nobody there except us. We bought the tickets on site, so the show must have started before we went in, despite no tickets having been sold.