A movie theater in the basement of a posh New York City hotel charges lofty prices up to $215 per person when meal included!
The Cannes Cinema is a compact 66-seat movie theater in the basement of the five-star Hotel Barriere Fouquet in New York City, which is located in the trendy and bohemian Tribeca district. Offices for the Tribeca Film Festival are nearby.
While a small-scale operation, the Cannes Cinema is popular and fills up, according to a New York Post article.
The larger insight is that people crave the group-viewing experience, since the theater caters to folks who can afford top in-home-cinema electronics. But they want a night-on-the-town.
“Tickets, which go up to $215 (tax and gratuity not included), grant access to a formerly private theater, where attendees lounge artfully in gold velvet loveseats and plush chairs beneath an exquisitely apropos gold-leaf ceiling,” says the New York Post article by Christopher Cameron.
Says the hotel’s promotion: “The corridors leading to Cannes are lined with a specially commissioned mural by artist Andie Dinkin recreating scenes from the French Riviera in the 1940s and ‘50s, based on vintage photographs sourced by the Barrière team.” The interior design has been described as Parisian Art Deco and the name, of course, references the famous French film festival.
The cinema is open to the general public though playdates are scare. Movies are a mix of recent rereleases and also some current theatricals.
Admission ranges from $110 for two drinks and a movie; $165 for dinner and a movie; to upwards of $215 for special events, according to the New York Post. In comparison, tickets at regular cinemas nearby go for around $20, which is well above the national average because everything is pricey in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
Finding out about screenings isn’t easy. “Tickets drop on Resy two weeks before a showing and are not pre-bookable,” says the New York Post article. “They aren’t advertised either, beyond a discreet post on the hotel’s Instagram. Even then, no link is given — you’ll have to message and their Instagram page is a sea of requests.” Combining in-your-seat dinner with a movie has been sizeable trend for a decade in the exhibition business. Tesla is building a charging station in Los Angeles that incorporates a diner serving meals and is decorated in a movie motif.
Resy is the restaurant reservation app that is backed by charge card outfit American Express. Finding playtimes is akin to hunting down a “secret cinema” club; these are private groups screening current or to-be-released films though patrons don’t know titles in advance. For the Cannes Cinema, titles are known but discovering playdates is the treasure hunt.
The difficulty in connecting for a screening is perhaps part of the allure and adds to the atmosphere of exclusivity. And again, it all goes to show that the group-viewing experience of cinema is enduring.
Related content:
Leave a Reply