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

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

#61

May be I am in minority but I would hate to be alone in entire theater. I enjoy some vibe and people around

Yes this is what people get wrong about "home theater". Its not just the tech, its the experience of watching something with others, amplifying the emotions.

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

#62

Movie theaters are reinventing themselves in various ways, and I’m unsure if it’s working, but some of it is creative. Around here, films from Bollywood show in Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati languages. There are family films in Spanish (those aren’t bad dubs, but parallel scripts and A-list voice actors.) Want to watch a Studio Ghibli film? Here’s the timetable for dubbed; here’s a timetable for subtitles! There are live v…

I think you are seeing a slice of the full picture. This app is not accurately showing all empty screens. While all of those are ideas that are increasing viewership there is still so much dead weight. Whether these things offset the dead weight I dont know. All I know is AMC is trading at $1.45 today so it does not look great.

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

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the ads, but they're not helping. I still like to go to theaters, but am thinking if not going anymore because I can't really take it. I don't go to AMC since not in the US, but where I go you can't even skip them because you never know how long it will be. I sat once for literally 40 minutes. It's also crazy expensive. So they need to do these things to stay afloat, but they're driving away the last people…

I don't disagree with you at all. Ads suck. But that ship sailed a long time ago. Just to provide some more context to AMC. They are a US national chain and they don't run "commercials" just lots of trailers. They have recently announced that they have extended the trailer runtime from 20-25 mins to 35-40 mins. While this is frustrating they always indicate in the app which movies have the trailers (most do) and the…

Yes, that's what I meant with crazy expensive, mostly the concessions. The tickets I am ok with, I am in th end going there for the big screen and experience, not to eat crappy food. I go with my kids, and it's just painful. We watched Mario 2 recently, and because my youngest didn't watch the first one, we watched that one at home first. 3.99 to rent 4k and 2.50 for popcorn and drinks for three kids. Puts things in perspective.

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

#64
post #7

This is cool. Something about dropping everything to go see a movie in an empty theater is sort of tempting.

One of the joys of having Moviepass in that brief period where it was very cheap but still worked was going to random late-night showings of stuff I'd have never otherwise seen, sometimes being the only person there.

Of course you can still do that with the surviving "all you can eat" plans, but they're way more expensive and aren't quite as generous.

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

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm old and have never pre-purchased a movie ticket in my life. I’m old and have always pre-purchased tickets, even in the 90s, as that’s the way to get better seats.

You sure about the 90s? Not saying it was impossible, but must have been extremely rare. Arclight was one of the first theaters to do assigned seats in 2002. AMC only started trialing in 2008, but didn't start rolling it out until 2016 in NYC.

In the US perhaps. Seat reservation has been the norm here in Norway since at least the 80s.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im assuming (though rare) it’s the same with flights. They keep the schedule for movies in case someone joins half hour late. Plenty of people visit my the cinema for all kinds of reasons other than the content (like sleeping in the AC among other things that come to your mind). Keeping the movie going rather than waiting for someone to show up and make it awkward would probably be better for customer service too.

This makes sense if someone bought a ticket and didn't showed up, but what if none was sold? They could just stop selling after a certain time and be sure nobody will be there late.

When I worked at a small cinema we would set up the movie to run regardless, because sometimes you would get late-showers buying tickets at the front desk and it's much more trouble to have to speed-start a movie for the projectionist than to be able to do it at the regular schedule. If you start it too late without manually remembering to forward past ads and trailers, you can also risk spilling into the next timeslot causing a pileup of delays. It's far simpler to just start the movie for an empty hall, and let customers join after it's started if they want to.

I'm unsure exactly how the deals with local businesses running ads before the movies are set up, but I could imagine that you're supposed to be running the ads an agreed upon number of times, regardless of ticket sales.

Sometimes in the daytime we would get retirees who would watch a movie and basically loiter around, and occasionally ask if they could catch the end of a different movie running in an empty hall. You'd sometimes let a regular crash an empty screening like this if they bought an extra snack or coffee for it or something.

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

#67

I have been quite a heavy patron of AMC theaters these past few years since COVID ended. I have seen A LOT of movies play to empty theaters. I used to actually peek at many of the rooms when I left my movie and so many were downright empty. Its the norm and its probably why their stock is trading at $1.45 as of this writing. Its a dead (not dying, dead) entertainment option. When you are competing for the same 24 hrs…

I want to enjoy the movie theater experience. It should be a better screen than the one in my home. It should be a better audio setup, with full surround sound. It should be great, a premium experience. The last few movies I’ve seen in theaters have not been that. Two of the last 3 movies I’ve seen had audio mixing problems, and dialogue was inaudible in some scenes. (I heard this got fixed later for one of the movie…

Sounds like you should be visiting Alamo Drafthouse. They take these things extremely seriously and are for the real fans. Here is their ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L3eeC2lJZs

Unfortunately since they already filed for bankruptcy a few years back they have had to cut costs and so their system for ordering food replaced (from pen and paper collected and an usher quietly brings you your food to QR code with...a cellphone) people are recently concerned that this has reduced their legendary quality. They still take audio and picture quality very seriously in my experience.

Also where are you located? LA and NYC have legendary theaters that are truly a special treat. Its harder to replicate that in various states but there are still some states trying (ex. NJ being the actual birthplace of the American film industry has a few excellent theaters scattered throughout that dont tolerate poor quality/talkers)

If your story is from AMC theaters just know that you are visiting the Mcdonalds of movie theaters.

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

#68

May be I am in minority but I would hate to be alone in entire theater. I enjoy some vibe and people around

Yes this is what people get wrong about "home theater". Its not just the tech, its the experience of watching something with others, amplifying the emotions.

Man, seeing The Avengers (2012) in a PACKED theater full of excited Marvel fans was something else. The deafening roar completely drowned out the Hulk's line "puny god".

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

#69
post #10

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.

I'm finding that more and more, when I impulsively go to the theater and try to buy tickets at the door... I always find the only tickets available are horrible, like in the front row to the side. You want like F-6 and F-7 and get A-2 and B-2. And if I even accept this, the people in the choice seats invariably show up right when all the trailers are wrapping up. so - people buy tickets ahead of time, and it might be…

If you go up to the box office and ask for "Alt-F4" they will act surprised and confused, but just tell them to type it into their computer

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

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the ads, but they're not helping. I still like to go to theaters, but am thinking if not going anymore because I can't really take it. I don't go to AMC since not in the US, but where I go you can't even skip them because you never know how long it will be. I sat once for literally 40 minutes. It's also crazy expensive. So they need to do these things to stay afloat, but they're driving away the last people…

I don't disagree with you at all. Ads suck. But that ship sailed a long time ago. Just to provide some more context to AMC. They are a US national chain and they don't run "commercials" just lots of trailers. They have recently announced that they have extended the trailer runtime from 20-25 mins to 35-40 mins. While this is frustrating they always indicate in the app which movies have the trailers (most do) and the…

They do also run actual commercials if you're crazy enough to show up before the showtime.

AMC is also interesting because even in the "real" trailer period they have a long ad for AMC itself but also for Coke, then another for themselves telling you to sign up for the loyalty programs, then another for themselves with Nicole Kidman in the theater with her suit with the silver pinstripes. A little thing for the theater is normal but they're going way overboard with it and it's hard to believe it's really effective.

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