David G. Smith
Steak Knife Member
Here is an article from the NYTs today:
All I have to say is, it is about time, I can't wait 'til they build one here.
August 17, 2005
Liked the Movie, Loved the Megaplex
By BRUCE WEBER
BOCA RATON, Fla. - It was Saturday night at the Palace 20, a huge megaplex here designed in an ornate, Mediterranean style and suggesting the ambience of a Las Vegas hotel. Moviegoers by the hundreds were keeping the valet parkers busy, pulling into the porte-cochere beneath the enormous chandelier-style lamps. Entering the capacious lobby, some of them dropped off their small children in a supervised playroom and proceeded to a vast concession stand for a quick meal of pizza or popcorn shrimp before the show.
Others, who had arrived early for their screening of, say, "Wedding Crashers" or "The Dukes of Hazzard" - their reserved-seat tickets, ordered online and printed out at home, in hand - entered through a separate door. They paid $18 - twice the regular ticket price (though it included free popcorn and valet service) - and took an escalator upstairs to the bar and restaurant, where the monkfish was excellent and no one under 21 was allowed.
Those who didn't want a whole dinner, or arrived too late for a sit-down meal, lined up at the special concession stand, where the menu included shrimp cocktail and sushi and half bottles of white zinfandel and pinot noir. As it got close to curtain time, they took their food and drink into one of the adjoining six theater balconies, all with plush wide seats and small tables with sunken cup holders. During the film, the most irritating sound was the clink of ice in real glasses.
Not your image of moviegoing? Pretty soon it might be. At a time when movie attendance is flagging, when home entertainment is offering increasing competition and when the largest theater chains - Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment (which has recently announced a merger with Loews Cineplex) and Cinemark - are focused on shifting from film to digital projection, a handful of smaller companies with names like Muvico Theaters, Rave Motion Pictures and National Amusements are busy rethinking what it means to go to the movie theater.
The Palace, which was opened five years ago by Muvico, a chain of distinctive megaplex theaters based in South Florida, remains pretty close to the gold standard, in terms of customer amenities in first-run theaters. But the competition is growing. In the age of the megaplex, after all, said Hamid Hashemi, Muvico's president, everyone gets pretty much the same movies and pretty much the same quality prints. "So what makes someone pass up one location and go to another one?" he added. "It's how you package the experience."
In other words, you have to offer more than a movie.
"It's the folks who create a compelling value proposition for consumers who will be the survivors in our business," said Paul Glantz, whose company, Emagine Entertainment, runs three megaplex theaters in Michigan, all featuring full bars and allowing customers to take their drinks to their seats.
"In my book, the Muvicos and Raves of the world represent the future of moviegoing in this country," said Mr. Glantz, who added unabashedly that the liquor license saved his business. "They're giving people a real reason to leave their home and be entertained."
Certainly, movie theaters have been experimenting with amenities since the advent of air-conditioning. ("It's cool inside!") But since 1995, when AMC opened the first megaplex, the 24-screen Grand in Dallas, the movie landscape has been reconfigured. And for the larger chains, the sheer size of the enterprise - Regal now has nearly 600 theaters in 40 states housing more than 6,600 screens - mitigates against chainwide service innovations. Some conveniences have been tried and kept: rewards programs for frequent moviegoers, for example. But experiments with restaurants and lounges have been largely discarded as inconsistent with what Dick Westerling, a Regal spokesman, calls "the core business," meaning the showing of movies.
Thus, the improvements Regal and AMC and the other behemoths have concentrated on involve the viewing experience: digital sound, stadium seating and armrest cup holders. And though most of them have tried regional, luxury and specialty items at the concession stands, too, as John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, put it, "We've experimented and experimented, and people basically want popcorn and soda and candy."
"They go to the movies to escape their houses," Mr. Fithian continued, "and they like to escape their healthy diets, too."
So the tinkering in terms of customer service has been mostly in the hands of small theater owners.
All I have to say is, it is about time, I can't wait 'til they build one here.
August 17, 2005
Liked the Movie, Loved the Megaplex
By BRUCE WEBER
BOCA RATON, Fla. - It was Saturday night at the Palace 20, a huge megaplex here designed in an ornate, Mediterranean style and suggesting the ambience of a Las Vegas hotel. Moviegoers by the hundreds were keeping the valet parkers busy, pulling into the porte-cochere beneath the enormous chandelier-style lamps. Entering the capacious lobby, some of them dropped off their small children in a supervised playroom and proceeded to a vast concession stand for a quick meal of pizza or popcorn shrimp before the show.
Others, who had arrived early for their screening of, say, "Wedding Crashers" or "The Dukes of Hazzard" - their reserved-seat tickets, ordered online and printed out at home, in hand - entered through a separate door. They paid $18 - twice the regular ticket price (though it included free popcorn and valet service) - and took an escalator upstairs to the bar and restaurant, where the monkfish was excellent and no one under 21 was allowed.
Those who didn't want a whole dinner, or arrived too late for a sit-down meal, lined up at the special concession stand, where the menu included shrimp cocktail and sushi and half bottles of white zinfandel and pinot noir. As it got close to curtain time, they took their food and drink into one of the adjoining six theater balconies, all with plush wide seats and small tables with sunken cup holders. During the film, the most irritating sound was the clink of ice in real glasses.
Not your image of moviegoing? Pretty soon it might be. At a time when movie attendance is flagging, when home entertainment is offering increasing competition and when the largest theater chains - Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment (which has recently announced a merger with Loews Cineplex) and Cinemark - are focused on shifting from film to digital projection, a handful of smaller companies with names like Muvico Theaters, Rave Motion Pictures and National Amusements are busy rethinking what it means to go to the movie theater.
The Palace, which was opened five years ago by Muvico, a chain of distinctive megaplex theaters based in South Florida, remains pretty close to the gold standard, in terms of customer amenities in first-run theaters. But the competition is growing. In the age of the megaplex, after all, said Hamid Hashemi, Muvico's president, everyone gets pretty much the same movies and pretty much the same quality prints. "So what makes someone pass up one location and go to another one?" he added. "It's how you package the experience."
In other words, you have to offer more than a movie.
"It's the folks who create a compelling value proposition for consumers who will be the survivors in our business," said Paul Glantz, whose company, Emagine Entertainment, runs three megaplex theaters in Michigan, all featuring full bars and allowing customers to take their drinks to their seats.
"In my book, the Muvicos and Raves of the world represent the future of moviegoing in this country," said Mr. Glantz, who added unabashedly that the liquor license saved his business. "They're giving people a real reason to leave their home and be entertained."
Certainly, movie theaters have been experimenting with amenities since the advent of air-conditioning. ("It's cool inside!") But since 1995, when AMC opened the first megaplex, the 24-screen Grand in Dallas, the movie landscape has been reconfigured. And for the larger chains, the sheer size of the enterprise - Regal now has nearly 600 theaters in 40 states housing more than 6,600 screens - mitigates against chainwide service innovations. Some conveniences have been tried and kept: rewards programs for frequent moviegoers, for example. But experiments with restaurants and lounges have been largely discarded as inconsistent with what Dick Westerling, a Regal spokesman, calls "the core business," meaning the showing of movies.
Thus, the improvements Regal and AMC and the other behemoths have concentrated on involve the viewing experience: digital sound, stadium seating and armrest cup holders. And though most of them have tried regional, luxury and specialty items at the concession stands, too, as John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, put it, "We've experimented and experimented, and people basically want popcorn and soda and candy."
"They go to the movies to escape their houses," Mr. Fithian continued, "and they like to escape their healthy diets, too."
So the tinkering in terms of customer service has been mostly in the hands of small theater owners.
