Pricing Movies To Demand?
from the will-it-work? dept
I remember when I was growing up that a small theater one town over showed "second run" movies (movies that had been out in the regular theaters a few months earlier, but weren't yet on videotape) for a $1 a shot. It was a good deal when you were a kid without too much disposable income, and also a good way to catch some films that you had missed in their first run through the theaters. It sounds like Stelios Haji-Ioannou (the UK's answer to Jay Walker) may have just accidentally created those same theaters in the UK. He's trying to take the same idea he did with airlines and internet caf�s - charging prices based on actual demand - and moving it to the movie business. He's opened his first Easycinema in the UK, which tries to make viewing movies as cheap as possible by cutting out as many expenses as possible. You buy your tickets on the web (the earlier you buy tickets, the cheaper they are), you bring your own food, and you check yourself in. All in all, the plan is to run a 10 screen cinema with just seven employees. The problem? Hollywood isn't happy. The early reviewers of the Easycinema experience aren't thrilled because they're only seeing second run movies. Hollywood is boycotting Easycinema and refusing to show their first run films, which, as the article suggests, might constitute a case of price-fixing. In the meantime, it doesn't sound all that different than the $1 theaters I used to visit years ago.
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Price discrimination
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Re: Price discrimination
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No concessions = no profits
He still has to hire somebody to clean the theatres after a show because people will bring in food.
So no profit center and fixed costs remain - good thinking.
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Re: No concessions = no profits
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