How about a monthly charge for entry to unlimited movies?

1) shaq-sized screens just sitting their all the time. you\’re creative, why don\’t you work out some deals with media companies and put some older movies on the imax. i\’d go pay to see apollo 13 on the imax.

2) people are crazy. remember that irrational \’must buy it again because it\’s on dvd\’ thing? same thing with imax. people will see that some movie is playing on the imax, suddenly it\’s new again.

3) it\’s got a great and recognizable brand. people think imax they think the best. you\’d be paying for the best very cheap. do you even still read this thing? haha. of course you do!

Please type pallet jack into Yahoo! I am #1 out of 774,000+ Who can sell Pallet Jacks online? I can I have 10k a month in sales.

If I can develop a simple and cheap (30 labor hours and under $200) plan for selling pallet jacks (Very hard online sale) I CAN PUSH YOUR DVDS! -

Thanks for reading. – Rbowles

A very simple solution – and no, I have not read through every post to see if this has been offered – but make it affordable for all budgets at the concession stand. If that is overcome, then people will pay xxx to get into a movie.

4.5 for a hot dog is a bit of a markup. Also at the concession stand, offer alcohol. Beer and wine are fine. The profits from beer/wine sales will surpass the profits lost due to lowering soda, hot dog, and popcorn prices. Most adults who stream the video or wait until it comes out on DVD do it because it is comfortable at home and they can enjoy a cocktail or two while watching the movie. I would NOT go the Studio Movie Grill route, they do that, and I am sure their profits are not that high.

Just my thoughts –

G

One idea I had was “Little big Screen”. The majority of moviegoing happens in a 3-4 day window. (Thur-Sun) In order to drive traffic/attendance during the “off” days why not bring shows from T.V. that can be fueled by the communal environment that the theatre offers.

Band of Brothers – DVD $50, filmed along the same lines as Saving Private Ryan. 10 part series that gives you the longevity that Movies may not offer. One episode every two weeks on the same night (Tue), same time each week 7:30 p.m. You have a built in base already (people who own the DVD or are fans), and you offer it on the big screen, a show that lends itself to a larger then life presentation. A group of war movie loving men who can bond, interact, cheer, etc… then afterwards discuss it.

Clone Wars – Cartoon series bridging the gap of the last two Star Wars movies. Again, built in fan base, thrives in a communal environment, series for longevity.

Sex in the City, Sopranos, Samurai Champloo, Fire Fly, you get the idea…

The theatre has one thing no home system, DVD collection has. The ability to get 100+ strangers in a room feeding off each other, sharing a moment, and wanting to do it again.

The next step would be to develop Mini-Movies. Get them back down to an hour, multiple episodes, larger then life presentation, monthly releases etc…

Movies are missing regularity, the development of a fan base, continued interaction. The only time you get it is a year later with a sequel, and normally they do not carry a plot forward. Think “Lord of the Rings”, great story told over a period of time through multiple installments.

Your best bet would be to form a community system of your own, revolving specifically around movies. Yes, yes… the last thing the world needs is yet another MySpaces, MSN Spaces, Facebook, whatever, but that’s not really what I am suggesting.

Create an online presence and give them real world tangible reasons to actually go there. Perhaps at first offer tickets at a discount if purchased online just to build a user base. Hell discounts on merchandise, advanced access to tickets, whatever it takes to build a user base at the least cost to yourself. I am sure you can think of ways to do this. The biggest thing is to build your user base quickly.

Once you have enough people start forming communities and use incentive after incentive to get new people and keep existing ones. At this point though, you should be able to use your existing community as a marketing tool. Offer a free movie to each person that refers another person after the newly created user pays for their first movie. Downside to this would be fraud, you would need to implement a system such as recording each person’s IP address to minimize people creating multiple accounts to get a free movie by creating and referring a fake user. On the bright side, the worse you could be taken for is every other movie. I am sure there are dozens of ways to minimize fraud.

If the community gets large enough, allow the formation of sub-communities. Allow people to organize themselves by geographical location, genre’s of interest, age range, kids/no kids. Hell, even allow people to group by marital status so people can view movies knowing they aren’t going to be hit on, or quite the opposite and use it to some degree as a pick up spot.

Now the key to success and future growth is allowing communities to form their own communities. Allow me to create my own private group in which I send invite only membership. I can then create a site as a tool to organize movie going events. Give an incentive again. If one person invites say, 6 or more other people, the starter gets in for free. Or, say groups of 10+, they get a discount across the board. This would allow communities to organize around say, the work place. Get a guaranteed block of tickets at a good price. If you get a large enough community ( say a mid sized corporate function ), allow them to actually choose the movie and have the theatre to themselves. Hell, if a community of likeminded people simply joined by a certain demographic all agree to buy tickets, give them the same opportunity. Thus, if someone in say New Orleans, got a community of sci/fi fans all signed up to go see a scanner darkly, let them have the theatre to themselves.

Hopefully what ends up happening is people from the virtual world start to interact in the real world. This would in turn allow people to meet likeminded people who they share an interest with. This could allow you to potentially allow you to tap into a market that is hard to get. The guy/girl with few friends that refuses to go to a movie alone. There are tons of people like this. Allowing people to meet in the real world, exchange online information, would allow the person to look at what the other person plans to view in the future and set a date ( in the non-romantic sense ) to join that other person in watching the movie. Hey, if it turns into a dating service, all the better. Also, allow people to keep a friends list and put a kiosk in the theatre so people can quickly browse what friends are watching what movies that day.

Finally, if the community is big enough to justify it, introduce democracy. Have user driven movie selection at select theatres. Gear communities by genre or age and let them actually vote towards what upcoming releases should be screened in the area. In essence, over time this should lead to the community doing the demographic work for you of choosing what movies should be on which screens, ideally maximizing the number of viewers to a given screen.

The added side benefit, against whatever costs are involved, is you over time will have a hyper detailed electronic profile of each of your various markets, broken down by demographics within. These stats will be based off actual viewership and not some skewed survey or inaccurate sampling mechanism. I’m sure you could find some value in that. Plus you will have a direct line to market future products or merchandise at your customer base.

At this point, connect to as many social sites as you can. Allow people to tie their Myspace accounts to their movie account so they can show what movies they watched, are going to watch, whatever. Do whatever you can to join and integrate as many social networks together. Make it easier for people to invite other people to join your service via MSN, Yahoo, whatever. Publish an API allowing other people to mesh in with your community.

This will generate the buzz within social communities and allow your user base and other online forums to do the marketing for you.

Cheers,
Mike

Mark, read http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060803/ap_on_el_ge/voter_reward;_ylt=ArwORM_ATAGSGEGl2WnZogKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OTB1amhuBHNlYwNtdHM-, tell me what you think?

My e-mail address is aerojmac@gmail.com. Good luck.