It's True And It's Also A Metaphor

Yes, Jeremy and I can go on about the movie theatre business and the madness, but this is one area of business that is much like a lot of other areas. When we say "movie theatres" we can easily be talking about "convenience stores" or almost any other business.

At the Hollywood 27, one area of concern for patrons is the concession stand. One stand is open and there are 3 other stands in the place, including one at the very end of the theatre located next to auditoriums 15, 16, and 17 which potentially can hold around 1300 people collectively. In other words, your most populated movies are likely to be in these auditoriums (you can add another 480 for auditoriums 14 and 18 which are located conveniently to said stand). Now, my reasoning is of course to open all of them. When I worked the floor I saw many customers decide not to get in line for concessions because of the length of the lines, and that's a lot of money not getting spent that would have been. Then, you have the customer who may not want something now, but might want something later. But with the prospect of walking over fifty yards to get anything, that extra money is going to get pocketed. Some customers don't even come out to complain about presentation problems with the prospect of walking that far.

When this theatre opened an extra stand, I believe it was for Harry Potter, the managers who worked the stand said it didn't do much. I say, when people are used to one stand being open, it doesn't even matter if you have signs saying another stand is open, people generally will go to the main stand because they don't get the message (which is entirely possible with most customers) about other stands. They're not used to it. Consistency is the key, and you can't scrap something just because it doesn't work the first time.

Note the following figures, and note that there will never be this many people in the theatre at one time, and not all of them are going to buy concessions even if there's a clean yellow brick road leading to a shiny, helpful concessionist with no customers. If you have a stand ready for around 1780 people for the 14 thru 18 auditoriums, then open the stand in the middle that can cater to four small auditoriums (potential: 430), leave the main stand for the remaining six auditoriums on the right side (around 940 people) and then use the stand that's on the left side that can cater to the last ten auditoriums in the theatre (which, with the help of the main stand should be able to handle the potential customers out of 1600 people), then you create an awareness. That's all advertising is, and this is free advertising. Hell, if you made a decision to do this, you could place an ad in the paper stating that all four stands will be open and it would be of little cost.

Customers simply don't want to be hassled. It's a hassle to stand in a long line and pay lots of money after standing there, when all you want to do is unwind and watch a flick.

I'd just be interested to know what other bloggers and commenters think about all this.