Paver of Yellow Brick Roads
Ted
The Hanson Brothers
"SlapShot" starring Paul Newman
Management & Marketing Philosophy
What Sam Goldwyn said almost a century ago equally applies to today, “there is nothing ever wrong with this industry a good movie won’t fix”.
However, exhibitors don’t make movies, they sell tickets, and that they can control. Hollywood type cinemas also make memories. Any cinemas biggest expense is a empty seat. Everything should be seen through that lens. Some Exhibitors can fill more seats more of the time than others.
Quality isn’t job one. Being totally fuck’n amazing is job one.
Word of mouth is still the best advertising. Social media allows for more mouths to be big mouths. Entertainment is a great worm for the hook.
Making each auditorium uniquely special with its own decorative theme and color scheme is not simply nice or superior “décor” compared to traditional operations. With cinemas, it’s the most economical marketing money can buy because it generates more word of mouth than any traditional cinema by far. The word of mouth grows exponentially and lasts over time achieving an “iconic” status that cannot be replicated in a traditional multiplex – and that’s money in the bank.
Bulthaup defines marketing as making the public a promise. Operation’s job is to fulfill the promise. That promise having been made - it must not be broken.
Value Guarantee: There is a relatively common feeling in this country that no matter how much a patron likes a movie – they did not quite, or sometimes not at all, get their monies worth. Typically, with the Hollywood style, no matter how bad they thought a movie was – they had a good time (aka got monies worth). Hollywood theaters form and functions act as a guarantee to patrons that they are going to have a great time, they are somewhere special.
The Application of a Key Concept – The Physical Theaters
Bulthaup well remembers the special days when his grandparents would take him to the few remaining single screen movie palaces. The show began just as patrons crossed the threshold into the lobby. In those theaters, the escape from daily life began the moment patrons crossed the theater’s threshold and entered the lobby. The grandeur of each unique venue—and the passion of the showman- owners—produced marvels as vivid as anything projected onto the screen itself.
Conversely, with the advent of multiplexes, theaters largely screened from the same handful of films; competed for audiences almost solely based on the convenience of showtimes and location. Aside from seat count, one auditorium is virtually identical to the next, and regardless of ownership, one chain’s cinemas are largely indistinguishable from another’s. Differences amount to little more than nuance with slight variations in concessions, price, amenities or who has the latest fad first.
Bulthaup sought to revive the spirit, joy and wonderment experienced in classic movie palaces as part of the greater movie-going experience. Each location had a unique name and separate version based on a common concept, (i.e. Hollywood Blvd, a cinema, bar & eatery - Hollywood Palms, a cinema, bar & eatery).
Each auditorium had a unique identity; its own separate color scheme and decorative theme like The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca, tributes like the Silver Screen, the Oscars, classic animation or a big top Circus, places such as Egypt, China, the green Jungle or the Deep Blue Sea all work. These spectacular results are not nearly as expensive as appearances indicate.
To understand décor in a Hollywood context, its proper to view these themes as not merely being decor but as marketing—something that the average multiplex lacks altogether.
Money spent on traditional broadcast or print advertising seldom generates impactful word-of-mouth and regardless vanishes after a single fleeting impression. Word of mouth remains the most powerful form of marketing, and themed auditoriums create memorable, high‑impact experiences that people can’t help but share not just verbally – but also with photos transmitted through social media.
Money invested wisely and creatively in atmosphere endures, continually sparking shared stories that generate even more shared experiences overtime and whose testimonials grow audiences exponentially.
Where is the value in the big scheme of things: How often does anyone go to work the next day talking as much about where they saw a movie as they speak about the movie itself? Almost never. (Does anyone ever identify a traditional theater chain like AMC in the same breath that they reveal the title of the film they just saw? Nope).
It is hard to conceive that the public believes the existence of a button on your seat to make your ass warmer is truly considered value-added. Does anyone go to their job the next morning and talk about the film they just saw and add, “and my ass was so nice and toasty all evening”?
No one walks into a typical multiplex and thinks of it as a “Movie Palace,” no matter how polished the facility might be.
Hollywood Blvd and Palms are commonly identified in the same sentence as the movie just viewed. Patrons invariably say, “I went to Hollywood Palms last night and watched X”, or “I saw X at Hollywood Blvd”. People don’t merely like Hollywood Palms or Hollywood Blvd. They consistently say they “love” those theaters. They’re very often enthusiastic to then explain exactly what they like about these theaters. Bulthaup does not build cinemas – he builds Movie Palaces where the venue is as memorable as the movie.
The Proof is in the Outcome
The two Hollywood cinemas were each believed to enjoy the highest per person, per auditorium, and per screening average income of any cinema in the country.
Hollywood Blvd opened with four auditoriums, then bisected a large vacant auditorium the following year bringing the total to six. The 8-screen Lowes Theater directly across the street closed within six months of Blvd’s initial opening. A well-established 22-screen AMC at the intersection of two major expressways, both with on and off ramps, was less than three miles from Hollywood Blvd. and closed within two years.
Hollywood Palms opened with seven screens. The 30-screen AMC was directly North is less than three miles away and had been the number one performing cinema in Illinois for decades. Within two months, that AMC started driving a large flatbed truck mounted with a large two-sided billboard up and down street and through the parking lot of Palms from noon to midnight, seven days a week. Within the year, that AMC entirely walled off one of the two wings with raw plywood, reducing the screen count from 30 to 18. AMC did not even bother to paint or carpet the plywood.
Hollywood Blvd soon increased their screen count to ten and sat 1200 total patrons.
The first set of films on Monday thru Friday did not start before 4:00, and on Saturday and Sunday the first set of movies started between noon and 1:00. More movie fans were annually attending flicks at Blvd than there were Bears fans attending NFL games at Soldier Field.
Sysco dedicated one of their most senior salesmen exclusively to Hollywood Palms and Blvd. It was not unusual for Sysco to drop off two refrigerator-freezer semitruck trailers full of food for the weekend in addition to what was already in kitchen storage. The on-premise frozen food lockers were large enough to use for temporary morgues.
Hollywood Blvd was selling an annual average of 40,000 pizzas.
Hollywood Filmworks in downtown Indianapolis only had 365 seats spread over three auditoriums, yet the theater sold more chicken wings than any other establishment in the county, and sold more ice-cream than any non-institutional seller in the county.
There are deep monthly discounts for large purchases of beer and liquor, not to mention occasional sales discounts and specials. By way of example, Palms and Blvd would each take advantage of the annual year end two-for-one cases of Cuervo, minimum of a 100-case purchase. The two hundred cases were generally sufficient for the entire year, especially since the theaters offered eight to ten other brands of tequila. There are similar discounts on food items.
Lifestyle Showtimes - Timing is Everything
An important component of The majority of cinemas still offer the identical start time for each day over an entire week, leaving those seats empty and wasting an hour or even two hours between screenings. Bulthaup traditionally brings house lights up immediately when credits hit the screen, then begin seating for the next show no later than 15 minutes after the credits end. This approach mirrors the concept of table turns in a restaurant—maintaining focus on efficiency rather than letting time and capacity go to waste.
The application of Bulthaup’s philosophy results in a reduction of average labor costs by 10%, and/or increased the average number of daily showtimes per title by one entire screening without any increase in labor costs.
Cinemas have historically scheduled a title for the identical start time seven days a week. That practice dates back to when a large portion of moviegoers relied on the Friday and Sunday entertainment sections of newspapers for showtimes. To avoid confusion, it was logical to apply a single schedule to every day of the week. This also allowed newspapers to charge premium advertising rates for that section over any other page. That disappeared with the rise of the internet so audiences now check showtimes online by the desired day and date without confusion. This allows multiplexes to vary different days start times without fear of any confusion or loss of attendance – yet few multiplexes take advantage of that flexibility.
Bulthaup also practices what he calls “lifestyle programing” by prioritizing traditional mealtimes as the first building block with any movie schedule. Food and beverage consumption is time-sensitive to the different days and day parts of any week.
The best start time to maximize attendance and in-theater sales is markedly different on Fridays vs Saturdays, and between Sundays and weekdays. By way of example the prime dinner show on Saturdays is later than on Sundays when guests are less inclined to stay out late the day before the start of the workweek. Conversely, later start times are more conducive to attracting Saturday audiences who are going for a night on the town and staying out a little later isn’t such a consideration.
Naturally accommodations are made for films with longer run times, while 90-minute movies allow for more opportunities to maximize sales by maximizing “table turns”. Regardless, the schedule starts with the main mealtime being the first building block to create the schedule, all other shows flow from that prime time. That’s both an art and a science; it’s also money in the bank.
The goal is simple. Generate more opportunities for full table turns. If the biggest expense to a theater is an empty seat; then adopt strategies to maximize butts in seats. Drive higher in-theater sales through strategically timed showings.
It is remarkable how few exhibitors in a traditional multiplex environment do not embrace this concept even though the same principle even applies to popcorn and soda.
The best bad example: Star Cinemas at Palms essentially run identical showtimes each day for seven days a week, sometimes with as much as two hours between screenings, starting way too early in the day and ending way too late in the evening, and they require that same schedule for each of their locations because they are control freaks. That is simply not bankable.
As a rule of thumb, it is ridiculous for any weekday movie to begin later than 9:00pm. It is not unusual for them to schedule an 11:00 pm showtime for each day of the week. That is especially true for kid-oriented movies – the latest Toy Story is not profitable late night – consolidate patrons and staff – don’t dissipate, it’s a waste of a projector beam if nothing else.
Marketing Philosphy
All long lines lead to Hollywood
Under Construction