Theaters owners and insiders in the articles are saying just the opposite.
Yep, starting tomorrow Los Angeles is mandating wearing mask again for the vaccinated and the unvaccinated indoors. If things keep getting worst they will move the a limited capacity for certain business, including movie theaters. This all because some people refuse to get vaccinated, even though the vaccine could save their lives. They are screwing things up for all of us.
Last edited by luprki; 07-17-2021 at 12:21 PM.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
I think you’re confusing revenue (where admissions are significantly higher than concessions ) and profit where they are closer to equal. In 2019, AMC reported admissions as 60% of revenue and concessions at 31%. However, they made 49% profit on admissions and a whopping 84% on concessions. For every dollar of revenue, contributions to profit were 29-cents for admissions vs. 26-cents for concessions.
As you say, it’s all in their financial statements.
The percentages were where total income was coming from, which is more holistic than looking at individual profit margins.
Profit is great, but if you are selling far less of those more profitable items then you're still going to make more total money from those other items despite making less profit from them. It's about scale, and there are enough people going that it offsets that lower profit margin...it's pretty straight forward.
Now, with attendance down now due to covid are those concession dollars more important than ever? Absolutely, but under normal circumstances the same isn't true.
Last edited by thwhtGuardian; 07-17-2021 at 05:01 PM.
Every article quoting theaters owners say without concessions theaters can’t survive., no matter what anyone says there is no getting around it. It doesn’t matter the percentages, the owners say they need concessions to stay open. This is not disputable.
Does anyone think theaters just sale concessions for the audience. They concessions is part of their business that keeps the lights on. If they could survive only on exhibition, they wouldn’t even bother selling concessions.
Last edited by luprki; 07-17-2021 at 07:53 PM.
There is anecdotal evidence supporting that myth because it presents a softer image for the price of their concessions; it paints them as victims struggling to survive against the greed of Hollywood studious and that by paying their prices you're helping the little guy make it by.
The actuality is much simpler, their prices are what they are not because they are desperate but rather because that's what they've found the market will bare. Because they do not allow outside food in their establishments they effectively hold a monopoly on food and can charge just about whatever they want and so they adjust the prices as high as they can continually feeling out the market and trying to find that sweet spot in pricing that is just before the point where people will consider not buying in order to maximize profits. And ticket prices are the same way, which is why you see so much variance from city to city and state to state.
But if they say all that out right people are going to be less likely to stand for the increased prices, and thus the sob story myth because its more sympathetic than naked capitalism.
Last edited by thwhtGuardian; 07-18-2021 at 06:39 AM.
Heh. The key thing is just because someone says something publicly doesn't mean that it's true. It's like when you hear top people who worked at DC in the '80s stating the reason for COIE was because the multiverse was too complicated, when in fact the real reason was to keep the company afloat. Obviously, those in charge didn't want to publicly state the latter.
Always take anything anybody says without evidence to support it with a grain of salt!
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
I will add a brief addendum, in that concessions are a much larger part of the pie for independent theaters. Being locally owned small businesses they can't get the rates on tickets that the big chains do, and because they don't have imax screens or 3D projectors and are generally just smaller occupancy theaters with fewer screens they don't attract the same attendance as the big chain theaters do so every bit of added sales are important to them.
At the end of the day though those theaters only make up less than 12% of all theaters in the US, so their woes and business strategies don't represent the state of the industry at large.
I'm good friends with a guy who owns a local cinema pub that runs second run films months after they leave the multiplex...but that's just really a gimmick to get you eat the food, the six bucks he charges for the movie isn't really keeping the place open it's people buying pizza and beer that allow him to open his doors. But again, that's not the case with the chain theaters, Mooky Greidinger, the ceo of Regal and a bunch of other chains world wide, isn't financing his new yacht because he charges 8 bucks a pop for a bucket of pop corn.
And it's the same with any other exhibitor from baseball to football.
Last edited by thwhtGuardian; 07-18-2021 at 08:40 AM.