Some movie theaters have created a premium-priced film-going experience with booze and fancy food at $29 a ticket, versus a $7.50 national average. Australian theater circuit Village Roadshow (VRS) has four such theaters in the U.S. offering a movie and dining experience.
“Forget Milk Duds and popcorn,” says a “Los Angeles Times” article by Richard Verrier and Jessica Gelt. “Welcome to the movie theater industry’s equivalent of the first-class tourist cabin: the luxury theater.”
VRS has four such luxury theaters in the U.S. – in Pasadena CA, Redmond WA, and two coming soon in the Chicago area. Through a $200-million joint venture with Norman Lear-led Act III Communications and others, VRS plans to open as many as 30 luxury theaters nationwide over the next five years in Austin TX, Scottsdale, AZ and more in the Los Angeles area.
The “Los Angeles Times” article notes that other theater circuits offer less elaborate gourmet food and beverages to spice up the movie-going experience.
“Some small theater operators, such as Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas, offer in-theater food and beverage services, as do some of the industry’s largest theater companies,” says the article. “Kansas City, Mo.-based AMC Entertainment Inc., for example, has been testing casual and more upscale food and beverage services at theaters in Kansas City and Atlanta and plans to expand the offerings to as many as a dozen theaters in the next year. At AMC’s Cinema Suites, moviegoers can dine and order alcoholic drinks in plush, reclining seats with lots of legroom.”
The book “Marketing to Moviegoers” is cautious about the prospects of super luxury. A mega-trend sweeping America is higher energy prices and higher taxes, which one would expect will let the air out prosperity and the appetite for pricey. With a trend to in-home “cocooning,” movies in theaters face stiff competition as consumers invest a bundle in home entertainment hardware and subscription TV that also present movies.
It’s also risky as video availability of movies comes closer to theatrical release, which reduces the urgency to see films in theaters.
Finally, recorded entertainment such as theatrical exhibition has always had its limits in the mind of consumers. So any theory that film-goers won’t mind paying more than the normal $10 for a movie experience because a football game is a $50 ticket or a live concert is $100 probably isn’t a valid comparison.
By the way, VRS is an expansive film and media company with strong historic ties with Warner Bros., with which it has co-financed films such as “The Matrix” films.
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