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Theaters experiment with discount passes
posted by
Patrick Crowley
on
October 31, 2006 at 6:28 am
CHICAGO, IL — CBS News has a report about Chicago-area theaters that are experimenting with off-peak discounts on theater admission:
Theaters are already being creative. Chicago’s Kerasotes locations offer a Five Buck Club, where you can see any movie for $5 if you’re willing to wait two weeks.
“It works great,” Wilder said. “They send you an e-mail that tells you what movies are playing there that week and then what movies are good with the card.”
At Chicagoland AMC Theatres, depending on the location, you pay either $4 or $5 for a movie, as long you go on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays or holidays before noon.
Comments (6)
That’s very nice! I hope it works out great!
AMC has a similar program in the DC area, but who is able to go to a 10am weekday showing of a movie? The only people who’d be attending such an early show are probably the retired and/or unemployed. They should make such discount shows say, like a 5pm matinee or so. Its not too early and its not too late.
The studios boooking agreements vary by region, theatres in major metro areas are often not able to offer bargain shows in the afternoon, if at all. Remember that the percentage of the ticket sales that the theatre has to remit to the studio is based on full-priced tickets in most cases, bargain shows or discount programs cost the theatre money.
In the Columbus, OH area, two far-north theatres have been running $6 evening shows every day for some time. The Marcus Crosswoods began this, and it was followed by the Rave 18. These theatres are within 5 miles of each other. Both show only first-run films. The Rave now has 12 DLP units, including one with 3-D capability.
There’s Valentino’s here in South Florida, which used to be two bucks for a showing. I believe it’s a little more, but not by much.
And the AMC theatre chain of course, has before noon super-discounted Fri-&-weekend tickets here too.
They vary according to neighbourhood, from $4-6. Good deals all.
Ford City 14(in Chicago) HAD $4 “AMCinema” tickets but raised them to $5. It seems almost all AMC locations in Chicago raised thier prices, for AMCinema as well as regular matinee and nightime showings. (River East has an $8 matinee, 50 cents less than the old full price nighttime ticket at Ford City)