AMC to trial pricing based on seat location

[Porthos]

13 minutes ago, grim22 said:

 

Did a very very quick calculation, and there seem to be 36 seats with the extra 1$, and 18 seats with the 2$ off. Is making no extra money on the normal screening worth burning this goodwill over?

 

Are you talking about the one for Standard Showings?

 

(30 not 36, but not much diff)

 

Yeah, does seem to be... interesting.

 

But given how few people buy the front row of seats, I'm almost morbidly curious to see just how many people actually buy them.  Those seats are the very last ones to go (except for a couple here and there) so might as well be no value seats, really.

[TwoMisfits]

53 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

I see the cold hearted logic as it does make it closer to other ticketing venues like sporting or concert events. Though in those cases the venues are much much larger, so the analogy only goes so far.  And, as noted, it works in other countries. 

 

The problem is, when society as a whole is used to something with literally, lit-er-a-lly, 100 years of precedence, fucking with it carries all sorts of risks.

 

I'm not going to be so foolish as to say this has no chance of working out, as track records on those sorts of proclamations ain't great.  But calling it a risky bet?  One that has a high likelihood of engineering bad will?  Oh yeah.  That I'm comfortable with.

 

 

I think Cinemark is pretty darn happy today...

[Porthos]

1 minute ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

I think Cinemark is pretty darn happy today...

 

Got to admit, I honestly thought AMC would give two (or even three in larger auditoriums) rows of seats for this "Value Sightline" thing.  But only the front row??? ONLY THE FRONT ROW!!!! 

 

That's just... Well lots of words I could use here and none of them complimentary. 

 

(presuming this AMC is representative)

[grim22]

13 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

Are you talking about the one for Standard Showings?

 

(30 not 36, but not much diff)

 

Yeah, does seem to be... interesting.

 

But given how few people buy the front row of seats, I'm almost morbidly curious to see just how many people actually buy them.  Those seats are the very last ones to go (except for a couple here and there) so might as well be no value seats, really.

I'm guessing these will increase over time. Like 2-5$ more depending on screen and movie and maybe just a 1-2$ discount.

 

The inevitable creep which will happen.

[keysersoze123]

Something weird is happening when I try to select the ticket. Its buggy for now :-) its showing both surcharge and discount for Preferred Sightline zone as well looking the source. For now I am going to ignore this until this goes across more theatres. 

 

 

 

Spoiler

I am seeing below zones

 

  "U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6dW5kZWZpbmVkfDA=":{
      "__typename":"SeatingZone",
      "id":"U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6dW5kZWZpbmVkfDA=",
      "name":"Standard Sightline",
      "type":"STANDARD",
      "surchargeAmount":0,
      "discountAmount":0,
      "order":2
   },

 

 

 "U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6ODE3MzF8MTAx":{
      "__typename":"SeatingZone",
      "id":"U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6ODE3MzF8MTAx",
      "type":"VALUE",
      "name":"Value Sightline",
      "order":3,
      "surchargeAmount":0,
      "discountAmount":2
   },
   "U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6ODE3MzF8MTAy":{
      "__typename":"SeatingZone",
      "id":"U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6ODE3MzF8MTAy",
      "type":"PREFERRED",
      "name":"Preferred Sightline",
      "order":1,
      "surchargeAmount":2,
      "discountAmount":2

 

 

 

[Porthos]

2 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

Something weird is happening when I try to select the ticket. Its buggy for now 🙂 its showing both surcharge and discount for Preferred Sightline zone as well looking the source. For now I am going to ignore this until this goes across more theatres. 

 

 

 

  Hide contents

I am seeing below zones

 

  "U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6dW5kZWZpbmVkfDA=":{
      "__typename":"SeatingZone",
      "id":"U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6dW5kZWZpbmVkfDA=",
      "name":"Standard Sightline",
      "type":"STANDARD",
      "surchargeAmount":0,
      "discountAmount":0,
      "order":2
   },

 

 

 "U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6ODE3MzF8MTAx":{
      "__typename":"SeatingZone",
      "id":"U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6ODE3MzF8MTAx",
      "type":"VALUE",
      "name":"Value Sightline",
      "order":3,
      "surchargeAmount":0,
      "discountAmount":2
   },
   "U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6ODE3MzF8MTAy":{
      "__typename":"SeatingZone",
      "id":"U2VhdGluZ1pvbmU6ODE3MzF8MTAy",
      "type":"PREFERRED",
      "name":"Preferred Sightline",
      "order":1,
      "surchargeAmount":2,
      "discountAmount":2

 

 

 

 

Yeah, don't know how it's going on AMC's website, but over at Fandango (which I obs care more about), I already cracked the code, as seen by ongoing discussion over in the Tracking thread.

 

On the other hand, I have exactly zero AMCs locally, so this is all academic for me.  I was just presenting my findings for the trackers who use Fandango and have AMCs in their tracking.

 

(this exact discussion is probs better in the Tracking thread anyway)

[tonytr87]

Get on Stubs A-list and none of this matters. Drives me crazy how many avid moviegoers don't have it. 

[TwoMisfits]

5 minutes ago, tonytr87 said:

Get on Stubs A-list and none of this matters. Drives me crazy how many avid moviegoers don't have it. 

 

Well, none of it matters...yet!  In terms of "creep" it could easily be that those A-listers have to pay more for the premium tickets or get relegated to the cheaper seats for big blockbusters...

 

Since once you get folks accustomed to it, then you can start tiered memberships, and not just tiered single tickets...

[dudalb]

5 hours ago, grim22 said:

Pretty big move by AMC and the first actual experiment with varied pricing in the US

 

https://deadline.com/2023/02/amc-entertainment-theater-ticket-prices-seat-location-screen-1235250978/

 

 

Actuallly varied pricing for seats was SOP for Road Show Releases before they died out in the 70's.

I would not be surprised is a full tilt road show release is not attempted in the near future.

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by dudalb

[interiorgatordecorator]

are the bad seats cheaper or are the good seats more expensive?

what type of premium are we talking about for the good seats?

[Porthos]

1 minute ago, interiorgatordecorator said:

are the bad seats cheaper or are the good seats more expensive?

what type of premium are we talking about for the good seats?

 

Yes and yes:

 

 

$2 dollars off for the blue seats, $1 extra for the gold seats in the above examples.

 

(as one might note, the blue seats are the really bad seats which always are sold last)

 

[CloneWars]

Interesting to note for the smaller screen theater, if a movie sells out, they actually lose $10. 

 

I can see a handful of people trying to save $2, but not a lot. People will game the system though and go to a low attendance movie, buy the blue seats and sit somewhere else.

 

$1 extra isn't that bad so most people will put up with it. With that said, making an extra $20-$50 per screening doesn't seem like much, especially because the distributor still gets a cut of that ticket price

[M37]

7 hours ago, grim22 said:

 

Did a very very quick calculation, and there seem to be 36 seats with the extra 1$, and 18 seats with the 2$ off. Is making no extra money on the normal screening worth burning this goodwill over?

Thing is, they will make extra money, because so few people will buy the cheaper seats. Would still come out ahead on most shows even if it was an even 36/36 split, but showing so few cheapies really does give off a bad impression 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

I think what really makes me laugh about this picture isn't so much the amount of "Preferred" Seats, but that the cheap seats are literally the very first row and nothing else.

 

Greedy bastards over at AMC couldn't even add the second row of neck crane seats to the "Value" tier.  Gives lie to their whole "Sightline" explanation.

Something like a 30% preferred /50% standard /20% cheap would just be more  visually appealing (and again, sill generate higher revenue), because people visually gravitate toward the top section, overestimate the numbers of seats sold there, and underestimate what’s left in lower level 

A showing that’s 50% sold looks “full” to most ticket buyers 

 

And not to mention, in order to get those preferred seats, you’re likely buying online/through app and so paying a surcharge fee, plus for new releases getting a more expensive “premium” ticket price too. A $10 adult becomes like $13.50 with all added fees 

[Porthos]

16 minutes ago, M37 said:

 

A showing that’s 50% sold looks “full” to most ticket buyers 

 

 

Yep.  I've been tracking shows for years, and I still have to fight myself over what a "full" show looks like.

 

Like, take a look at the following:

 

 

Not sure what people would intuitively think the seat percentage is.  66%?  75%?

 

Spoiler

47.25% [103/218 - including wheelchair slots]

 

Here's another example:

 

 

Spoiler

50.57% [89/176]

 

[NOTE: A slightly special case as Fandango isn't rendering six of the seats that can be bought on the corp site, but those also are 50/50 split so no real difference]

 

Now I'm intentionally choosing theaters with odd seating maps and stray seats.  But I have to constantly remind myself that even this:

 

 

still has 25% of its seats/wheelchair slots left!!!

 

(160/215 74.42%)

Edited February 7, 2023 by Porthos

[Mulder]

12 hours ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

Well, none of it matters...yet!  In terms of "creep" it could easily be that those A-listers have to pay more for the premium tickets or get relegated to the cheaper seats for big blockbusters...

 

Since once you get folks accustomed to it, then you can start tiered memberships, and not just tiered single tickets...

A-List is already the tiered membership.

[TwoMisfits]

2 hours ago, Mulder said:

A-List is already the tiered membership.

 

There can be more tiers than one level...just look at the seats - 3 prices now, not 2...

[ChipDerby]

I'm surprised how many people here are just OK with this. I think this is idiotic.

[Mulder]

6 hours ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

There can be more tiers than one level...just look at the seats - 3 prices now, not 2...

A-List is already the highest priced tier of AMC Stubs. The other two tiers are Premier and Insider. If they tiered it anymore, it's going to literally collapse.

[Morieris]

I bet wheelchair spaces are also affected.

The entire thing rankles me, glad they never brought AMC back here.

[Porthos]

23 minutes ago, Morieris said:

I bet wheelchair spaces are also affected.

The entire thing rankles me, glad they never brought AMC back here.

 

Only have a sample size of one theater so far, but as I check that theater looks like there are always one pair of wheelchair slot/companion seats available for Value with the rest being Standard.

 

Is a little tough to tell though as the seat layout for this particular theater has all of the wheelchair/companion seats either smack dab in the middle or toward the front, with none in the back.  Plus just one theater with limited showtimes up so far.

 

Wouldn't put it past them though, no.