Smashing Cars & Self-Care Sundays: How Today's Cinemas Attract Moviegoers
In 2019, over 1.2 billion movie tickets were sold in Canada and the United States. During the pandemic year of 2020, the bottom dropped out. Only 200 million tickets were sold. In the U.S., over 3,000 movie theatres closed their doors for good. Last year, just under 800 million tickets were sold. While those numbers have not fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, 800 million tickets is still nothing to sneeze at.
But movie theatres had to get creative to generate those sales.
The key is to make the movie-going experience much more interesting than sitting at home on your comfy couch, in your sweat pants, watching a movie on your swanky home theatre system.
Movie theatres, of course, have always been at the mercy of Hollywood blockbusters to survive, which explains all the super hero sequels, and occasionally, an Oppenheimer and a Barbie sneak through. But since the pandemic, theatres are relying less on Hollywood, and are now more aggressive with their own marketing strategies.
As a matter of fact, the CEO of AMX theatres, the world's largest cinema chain, said his company will no longer depend on "what's always worked before" – noting that the pandemic pushed the industry into "uncharted waters." Those turbulent waters are sometimes expensive, and sometimes, incredibly simple.
A chain of U.S. theatres called Warehouse Cinemas doesn't have the deep pockets of its bigger rivals, so they use social media to invite patrons to special evenings. The CEO calls it "eventizing." For example, they offer special "daddy-daughter" date night films. When it was showing the movie "Unhinged" which revolves around a road-rage incident, the theatre hosted a "car smashing event." Customers who bought tickets could take a swing at a car to vent their frustrations. That led to an uptick in ticket sales.
At a cinema chain in Australia and New Zealand, they began welcoming knitting clubs to special nights. People buy tickets to watch the movie while they knit. A theatre chain in California offers Self-Care Sundays. Patrons are given soothing, hydrating under eye patches, and each showing has a 10-minute mindfulness meditation to relax patrons before they enjoy the film.
As another way of generating revenue, many cinemas have started marketing live event streaming. Some stream NFL games. Others show live streams of concerts. Some stream Sunday religious services, and still others show filmed Broadway theatrical productions.
The New York Metropolitan Opera broadcast live performances in over 2,000 cinemas, selling 2.4 million tickets.
Some larger chains have transformed smaller screens into bars or bowling alleys, so patrons can linger longer after, or before, the movie. Some theatres will have double-feature nights, like showing Home Alone and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so parents can introduce their kids to the hilarious world of John Hughes.
Cineplex has rented their screens to gamers. Twelve players can have the theatre with its gigantic screen and thunderous sound. Gamers can bring their own games, or use one provided by Cineplex. Some theatres even arranged special Dungeons & Dragons events for the gaming community, where fans can come and watch simulcasts of the role-playing campaign, which spans hundreds of episodes – some four or five hours long.
Tickets sold out within an hour.
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