Allocated frickin' seating in CINEMAS? WTF?
-> info@ahl.com.au :
To the management of Greater Union and Birch Carroll and Coyle Cinemas,
It is with regret that I learned of your adoption of an assigned seating policy. In addition to being personally annoying, and one more reason to recommend to family and friends that they not attend your cinemas, I gather that you are under the impression that having the ability to cram the maximum number of people into each session will make each such session, and thus the operation of the cinemas overall, more profitable.
Unfortunately, I must disabuse you of this notion.
Agreed, there are business models in which nonpersonalised, automatically assigned seating works. These include airlines and high-end theatre and opera. The reason that these models work is that the industries in question are effectively monopolies and, to an extent, niche markets. There is no other option for inexpensive, high-speed, long-distance travel than by air. There is no other option for viewing live theatre or performance opera than to patronise the few establishments which provide it.
Cinemas do not have this luxury. There has not been a monopoly on the showing of movies for several decades now. Allow me to iterate some of the more common alternatives.
1) Movie theatres have already lost the low-cost market to internet downloading. And be honest with yourselves and your accountants - no matter what legislation is passed demonising ones and zeroes, people will always find a way around it - IF, and I cannot stress this too much, IF it is worth their time and effort. With the cost of a movie ticket and standard snacks rising to nearly thirty dollars per viewing, more and more people will be choosing the free option.
2) Movie theatres are rapidly losing the mid-cost market to DVDs. Especially when said DVDs, with infinite viewings, favorite seating, cheap snacks, perfectly focused and audially tuned experiences, zero pre-show advertisements, portability, and the ability to show and lend to friends and family, cost around about the same as that single-session ticket and popcorn. The cost of a DVD player is down to two tickets with popcorn. And with mounting pressure for DVDs to be released sooner and sooner after cinema release, your lead time is shrinking. Note that there have already been releases of DVDs on the same day as the cinemas, and in the cases where the cinemas are _delaying_ the films, the DVD is often available before it comes to the big screen. Films on consumer home equipment are already approaching the level of the average cinema, and the gap is closing rapidly. To be blunt, it's eating your lunch.
Oh, and the technical/political 'solution' of regional encoding (along with every other artificial restriction scheme, like HDCP, content scrambling systems, and any type of digital rights management) is already a flop. If a movie can be played on any screen or speaker, even once, it's already on the internet and available in near-perfect quality across the planet.
3) Movies which are primarily distributed through non-cinema outlets - mainly those freely available over the internet (there's that word again!), as a free multi-billion-person distriibution and viewing channel is not to be sneezed at when it comes to advertising a studio, director, or creative team. While they often do not have the full cinematic quality of traditional Hollywood fare, they are (a) getting better very fast, and (b) possibly more importantly, entertaining people at home instead of sending them to the cinemas.
The ubiquity of these options is already significant and accelerating.
As you can see, and as anyone under the age of 35 could tell you, you are no longer in a monopoly (technically, an oligopoly) industry. Thus, using monopoly tactics results not only in the expected slightly more revenue per customer or per session, but a significant drop-off in total customer attendance (and thus total revenue) as customers become disenchanted with the provided experience and move to non-cinema alternatives. The seating policy, for example - what customer wants to be prevented from picking a great seat, sitting in the same part of the cinema they always sit, or from moving away from the noisy child, chattering teenagers, or creepy old guy? Who wants to be prevented from sitting with their friends just because they bought tickets separately? Why is this now a problem when it never was before? Ah, forget it - we'll go elsewhere for entertainment and just get the DVD next week, both of which we can do in a group.
In short, people now have other ways to see the latest blockbusters than by travelling to cinemas. To resort to business terms, the demand for your services is no longer inelastic. Your industry practices are falling behind the Pareto frontier. Your finance projection assumptions will need to be redrafted.
So.
The question becomes - what to do now?
Well, far be it from a recent ex-customer of yours to give you a free, demographically valuable exit interview, but let me hit on a couple of the high points.
Point: Stop using monopoly tactics and start assuming you're in actual competition with other sources for movies, and not just other cinema chains. I know this is a paradigm shift, but work on it.
Point: Unless you cut prices drastically, you will continue to lose distribution market share from the low end at increasing rates.
Point: Take a good long look at exactly what service you are now providing, because it's not what people were coming to you for twenty, or even ten years ago. You are no longer providing the service of sole access to commercially distributed movies. You are, however, in an excellent position to best provide certain classes of experience which are not as well served by other distribution channels. These include top-end experiences, (such as your Gold Class service, well done), 'classic' experiences which replicate the movie, popcorn and find-your-own-seating experience of yesteryear, and the full-commercial experience, which is one aspect that the home cinema or personal computer cannot replicate at all.
I should elaborate on that last option a little.
You have a large, successful corporation, familiar with (and culturally associated with) the movie industry, able to leverage efficiencies of scale, and with flexible, multiskilled sales staff.
Am I sparking ideas yet? Perhaps I should be clearer:
* Many locations and lots of existing staff, floor space and buying power not available to individuals
* A brand name firmly associated with movies in general
...yes? Yes?
OK, cards on the table here. You need ways to make money out of your assets, and reputation. Presenting movies and selling snacks need not be your only two business lines (good thinking on the online snack shop, though). Let's play pretend for a moment. You be you, and I'll be your average customer demographics.
**********
Here I am. I'm a kid. I've been wanting to go see the latest kids' movie for days, maybe weeks. It's the latest 'in' thing, the buzz is everywhere amongst my friends. I want the movie, I want the popcorn, and when I come out of the screening, I am so hyped to the gills with sugar and the latest animated characters that I want to buy (or make my parents buy) everything with the movie name on it. Plush toys. Masks. Pez dispensers. Action figures or dolls. Posters. Stickers. Maybe a whole showbag. AND THE DVD. Maybe ALL the DVDs, if this is a sequel or related to a TV show. Yay, sequels and TV shows! And I want the Greater Union DVD box set instead of the normal box set because it has a cheap plastic figurine or other bit of ten-cent fluff inside which proves that I went to the movie and got the _special_ version. Anyone can get the normal box set, even Grandma.
Here I am. I'm a teenager or young adult. I come out of a screening, I want to buy T-shirts, posters, action figures, keyrings, AND THE DVD. And anything even remotely salubrious, risque or amusing with the movie brand on it, because I'm a rebel and oh-so-daring.
Hey, I'm an adult who watches no-brainer movies. I want the poster, the T-shirt, the comedy mask or hat, the hilarious keyring, the figurine that spouts catchphrases, the fake plastic prop, AND THE DVD. And maybe some more DVDs of other stuff by that same guy, or starring that really funny or stunningly gorgeous actor or actress. And some popcorn to take home. And one of those Coke cups with the movie characters on it. Woo!
Now I'm an adult who watches serious movies. The kind of thing that The Movie Show gets all excited about. I don't want the comedy figurines, but I do want the DVD, and maybe the DVDs of everything that director's done to date. And some commentary DVDs where people in sober suits and thoughtful voices deconstruct the director's vision. And some more popcorn, to better replicate the essential movie experience at home. And some discount Gold Class tickets for the next session, so I can take this person I'm hoping to impress. And a DVD of the original 1937 black-and-white version so I can sound knowledgable about the differences.
I'm a retiree who has enjoyed the cinema for decades. I take the grandkids to see their movie, and want to buy them lots of movie-related items, and maybe a couple of things for their birthdays and Christmas. In addition, my own kids have just given me one of these new DVD players, and I've been trying it out with all kinds of things. Did you know you can get all the original Disney films on those little silver disks now? You wouldn't happen to have a catalogue of classic films I could look through, would you? Good Lord, I remember seeing that one when I was just a little thing. Could I get one? You'll even have them posted to me? Amazing!
**********
Just... please think about it. Drive-in cinemas failed to move with the times and now they're practically extinct. I'd hate to see the same thing happen to cinemas in general, if only because they're a cultural phenomenon which doesn't really deserve to be swept into an early grave because they couldn't adapt. Take a chance. Start a new 'experiemental' cinema brand name. Subcontract a section of the candy display to a movie merchandise distributor. Provide options that people can't get at home. Give people what they want, rather than considering them warm bodies to be shuffled in and out as fast as possible. Co-brand with movie rental businesses or DVD sellers. Talk to guerrilla marketers. Reinvent yourselves in new markets, because just having a projector and big screen is no longer good enough.
And for crying out loud, get rid of allocated seating!
-S
(Feel free to use the above address as a contact for Greater Union if you need to; their website doesn't list any useful email addresses. Can't imagine why.)
To the management of Greater Union and Birch Carroll and Coyle Cinemas,
It is with regret that I learned of your adoption of an assigned seating policy. In addition to being personally annoying, and one more reason to recommend to family and friends that they not attend your cinemas, I gather that you are under the impression that having the ability to cram the maximum number of people into each session will make each such session, and thus the operation of the cinemas overall, more profitable.
Unfortunately, I must disabuse you of this notion.
Agreed, there are business models in which nonpersonalised, automatically assigned seating works. These include airlines and high-end theatre and opera. The reason that these models work is that the industries in question are effectively monopolies and, to an extent, niche markets. There is no other option for inexpensive, high-speed, long-distance travel than by air. There is no other option for viewing live theatre or performance opera than to patronise the few establishments which provide it.
Cinemas do not have this luxury. There has not been a monopoly on the showing of movies for several decades now. Allow me to iterate some of the more common alternatives.
1) Movie theatres have already lost the low-cost market to internet downloading. And be honest with yourselves and your accountants - no matter what legislation is passed demonising ones and zeroes, people will always find a way around it - IF, and I cannot stress this too much, IF it is worth their time and effort. With the cost of a movie ticket and standard snacks rising to nearly thirty dollars per viewing, more and more people will be choosing the free option.
2) Movie theatres are rapidly losing the mid-cost market to DVDs. Especially when said DVDs, with infinite viewings, favorite seating, cheap snacks, perfectly focused and audially tuned experiences, zero pre-show advertisements, portability, and the ability to show and lend to friends and family, cost around about the same as that single-session ticket and popcorn. The cost of a DVD player is down to two tickets with popcorn. And with mounting pressure for DVDs to be released sooner and sooner after cinema release, your lead time is shrinking. Note that there have already been releases of DVDs on the same day as the cinemas, and in the cases where the cinemas are _delaying_ the films, the DVD is often available before it comes to the big screen. Films on consumer home equipment are already approaching the level of the average cinema, and the gap is closing rapidly. To be blunt, it's eating your lunch.
Oh, and the technical/political 'solution' of regional encoding (along with every other artificial restriction scheme, like HDCP, content scrambling systems, and any type of digital rights management) is already a flop. If a movie can be played on any screen or speaker, even once, it's already on the internet and available in near-perfect quality across the planet.
3) Movies which are primarily distributed through non-cinema outlets - mainly those freely available over the internet (there's that word again!), as a free multi-billion-person distriibution and viewing channel is not to be sneezed at when it comes to advertising a studio, director, or creative team. While they often do not have the full cinematic quality of traditional Hollywood fare, they are (a) getting better very fast, and (b) possibly more importantly, entertaining people at home instead of sending them to the cinemas.
The ubiquity of these options is already significant and accelerating.
As you can see, and as anyone under the age of 35 could tell you, you are no longer in a monopoly (technically, an oligopoly) industry. Thus, using monopoly tactics results not only in the expected slightly more revenue per customer or per session, but a significant drop-off in total customer attendance (and thus total revenue) as customers become disenchanted with the provided experience and move to non-cinema alternatives. The seating policy, for example - what customer wants to be prevented from picking a great seat, sitting in the same part of the cinema they always sit, or from moving away from the noisy child, chattering teenagers, or creepy old guy? Who wants to be prevented from sitting with their friends just because they bought tickets separately? Why is this now a problem when it never was before? Ah, forget it - we'll go elsewhere for entertainment and just get the DVD next week, both of which we can do in a group.
In short, people now have other ways to see the latest blockbusters than by travelling to cinemas. To resort to business terms, the demand for your services is no longer inelastic. Your industry practices are falling behind the Pareto frontier. Your finance projection assumptions will need to be redrafted.
So.
The question becomes - what to do now?
Well, far be it from a recent ex-customer of yours to give you a free, demographically valuable exit interview, but let me hit on a couple of the high points.
Point: Stop using monopoly tactics and start assuming you're in actual competition with other sources for movies, and not just other cinema chains. I know this is a paradigm shift, but work on it.
Point: Unless you cut prices drastically, you will continue to lose distribution market share from the low end at increasing rates.
Point: Take a good long look at exactly what service you are now providing, because it's not what people were coming to you for twenty, or even ten years ago. You are no longer providing the service of sole access to commercially distributed movies. You are, however, in an excellent position to best provide certain classes of experience which are not as well served by other distribution channels. These include top-end experiences, (such as your Gold Class service, well done), 'classic' experiences which replicate the movie, popcorn and find-your-own-seating experience of yesteryear, and the full-commercial experience, which is one aspect that the home cinema or personal computer cannot replicate at all.
I should elaborate on that last option a little.
You have a large, successful corporation, familiar with (and culturally associated with) the movie industry, able to leverage efficiencies of scale, and with flexible, multiskilled sales staff.
Am I sparking ideas yet? Perhaps I should be clearer:
* Many locations and lots of existing staff, floor space and buying power not available to individuals
* A brand name firmly associated with movies in general
...yes? Yes?
OK, cards on the table here. You need ways to make money out of your assets, and reputation. Presenting movies and selling snacks need not be your only two business lines (good thinking on the online snack shop, though). Let's play pretend for a moment. You be you, and I'll be your average customer demographics.
**********
Here I am. I'm a kid. I've been wanting to go see the latest kids' movie for days, maybe weeks. It's the latest 'in' thing, the buzz is everywhere amongst my friends. I want the movie, I want the popcorn, and when I come out of the screening, I am so hyped to the gills with sugar and the latest animated characters that I want to buy (or make my parents buy) everything with the movie name on it. Plush toys. Masks. Pez dispensers. Action figures or dolls. Posters. Stickers. Maybe a whole showbag. AND THE DVD. Maybe ALL the DVDs, if this is a sequel or related to a TV show. Yay, sequels and TV shows! And I want the Greater Union DVD box set instead of the normal box set because it has a cheap plastic figurine or other bit of ten-cent fluff inside which proves that I went to the movie and got the _special_ version. Anyone can get the normal box set, even Grandma.
Here I am. I'm a teenager or young adult. I come out of a screening, I want to buy T-shirts, posters, action figures, keyrings, AND THE DVD. And anything even remotely salubrious, risque or amusing with the movie brand on it, because I'm a rebel and oh-so-daring.
Hey, I'm an adult who watches no-brainer movies. I want the poster, the T-shirt, the comedy mask or hat, the hilarious keyring, the figurine that spouts catchphrases, the fake plastic prop, AND THE DVD. And maybe some more DVDs of other stuff by that same guy, or starring that really funny or stunningly gorgeous actor or actress. And some popcorn to take home. And one of those Coke cups with the movie characters on it. Woo!
Now I'm an adult who watches serious movies. The kind of thing that The Movie Show gets all excited about. I don't want the comedy figurines, but I do want the DVD, and maybe the DVDs of everything that director's done to date. And some commentary DVDs where people in sober suits and thoughtful voices deconstruct the director's vision. And some more popcorn, to better replicate the essential movie experience at home. And some discount Gold Class tickets for the next session, so I can take this person I'm hoping to impress. And a DVD of the original 1937 black-and-white version so I can sound knowledgable about the differences.
I'm a retiree who has enjoyed the cinema for decades. I take the grandkids to see their movie, and want to buy them lots of movie-related items, and maybe a couple of things for their birthdays and Christmas. In addition, my own kids have just given me one of these new DVD players, and I've been trying it out with all kinds of things. Did you know you can get all the original Disney films on those little silver disks now? You wouldn't happen to have a catalogue of classic films I could look through, would you? Good Lord, I remember seeing that one when I was just a little thing. Could I get one? You'll even have them posted to me? Amazing!
**********
Just... please think about it. Drive-in cinemas failed to move with the times and now they're practically extinct. I'd hate to see the same thing happen to cinemas in general, if only because they're a cultural phenomenon which doesn't really deserve to be swept into an early grave because they couldn't adapt. Take a chance. Start a new 'experiemental' cinema brand name. Subcontract a section of the candy display to a movie merchandise distributor. Provide options that people can't get at home. Give people what they want, rather than considering them warm bodies to be shuffled in and out as fast as possible. Co-brand with movie rental businesses or DVD sellers. Talk to guerrilla marketers. Reinvent yourselves in new markets, because just having a projector and big screen is no longer good enough.
And for crying out loud, get rid of allocated seating!
-S
(Feel free to use the above address as a contact for Greater Union if you need to; their website doesn't list any useful email addresses. Can't imagine why.)