For those who have been involved in cinema management, or not, what are the implications for this sort of ‘attack’ on conventional approaches to running a cinema?
They are not going to get licences to show big movies (at leat not yet) due to the percentage of profits (up to 70% for the first weeks takings) generally paid to the company behind the film.
So, will this work as an idea, or crash and burn? Any thoughts?
It certainly seems radical. I thought existing cinema chains make most of their profits on food and drink sales, since most of the ticket price goes to the distributor.
Also, do most people decide what film they want to see a month in advance? Even a day in advance is pushing it in my experience. Although many cinemas offer booking by phone/web and let you collect your tickets from a machine, I would guess that most tickets are still sold over counters. Many moviegoers are too young to have credit cards.
There seems to be a trend in the cinema market towards luxury, with bigger and comfier seats: are the new cinemas going to be nasty, cramped and hard-seated? And will the price savings justify that?
I don’t think this can be much ran much more cheaply, especially with the loss of profit on concession sales. Most tickets are likely to be little cheaper than other cinemas.
But I assume Stelios has done his sums. And if he can make ticket purchase sufficiently easy he could be on to a winner.