BoxOffice® Pro - December 2010

pate the journey that was going to happen
beyond this area—it’s really become an icon
for ArcLight.”
The simple black, yellow and green
Departure Board is the flashiest focal point
when guests enter the lobby. Instead of
decorating the space with bright signs and
ads, Beach Cities pared down to the basics.
The effect is more like entering a museum
than a mall—the ArcLight psychology is
that the building should serve as a mellow
waystation between the outside world and
the guest’s movie of choice.
“We’ve eliminated a lot of the neon and
brightness to help our guests relax,” says Director
of Facilities and Design Joe Miraglia,
who oversaw the remodeling of the theater.
Besides the Departure Board, the one dramatic
flourish is sheets of white cloth that
cascade down from the ceiling in the lobby
and along the auditorium hallway. “The
white fabric really subdues the space and
breaks it up a little bit,” explains Miraglia.
Past the box office, one full two-story
wall of the theater is papered with 63 poster
cases hung together frame-to-frame in a
looming 9 x 7 grid. For the opening, each
box holds a glossy photo of a grinning
ArcLight guest, the name of their favorite
movie and a quote about why they choose
the ArcLight as their theater of choice. (Says
one, “You had me at caramel corn.”)
“We reached out to our ArcLight members
and got over 400 responses,” exclaims
Gretchen McCourt, Executive Vice President
of Programming and Communications. The
poster wall is a smart flourish; it’s both decoration
and a way to say ‘thank you’ for patron
loyalty. “The storyboard will rotate all
the time. We’re filling it with classic movie
posters, we’re filling it with one single film
in a mosaic, we have great, great examples
of guests taking pictures with it. We had a
classic one-sheet wall of Disney films once
and people were talking pictures of themselves
with their favorite posters and with
their children.”
A few steps away is an exhibit case that
hosts costumes from movies playing right
down the hallway. Their other theaters are
touring the rococo costumes from Tim Burton’s
Alice in Wonderland, but the first guests
into the theater in November will see outfits
from Morning Glory. Explains McCourt, “It
just gives our guests a further chance to
connect to the film. They’ve seen the movie,
they love it, they can come and read about it,
they can see the dress that she’s wearing at
HEY, GOOD-LOOKING
Official Morning Glory costumes on display brings Hollywood to this beachside theater
the end of the movie.”
This grand decision hinges on one convenient
design: ArcLight’s reserved seating
policy, which asks every guest to choose
their seats when they buy their tickets,
whether online or at the box office. Reserved
seats are crucial to the ArcLight’s philosophy—and
not just because they allow
cineastes the chance to pin down the perfect
center seat. With their ticket purchase,
every guest is assured that they know they
and their party have a spot waiting for them
in the auditorium. And with that certainty,
guests are free to keep an eye on the Departure
Board as they wander around the lobby,
get a drink at the cafe, wait in line for concessions,
check out the displays and even
visit the gift shop stocked with ArcLight
swag, art books and clever tchotchokes—a
perfect spot to snag a last second present.
“Most of our guests take advantage of
having that time back to immerse themselves
in other areas of the theater,” says GM
Michael Blazer. “All 16 theaters are reserved
seating—it really eliminates the rush of, ‘I
need to go and grab my seat before someone
else does.’”
“Guests aren’t in the auditoriums for a
long time because of the reserved seats,”
adds Dashwood. “It’s a weird feeling, if
you’ve never done it before, to have a glass
of wine and know that you can come in literally
two minutes before the movie starts.”
And with guests in the lobby, that eliminates
the need to jazz up the restless theater
with quizzes and ads and pop music. “The
sound that you hear isn’t radio hits—it’s the
soundtrack of the movie that you’re about
to see, another way to pull guests into that,”
describes Dashwood, “and on the screen,
there aren’t slides about the local auto dealership
down the road—audiences can have
that time to themselves.”
These are bold choices when both theaters
and their guests are accustomed to
commercials as a way to help cover the costs
of movie-going. Instead, ArcLight has some
of the highest ticket prices in the region. At
their most-expensive location in Hollywood,
a Sunday afternoon admission costs $16. (At
Beach Cities, the cost has been shaved down
a few dollars.) The test for the chain was:
will audiences who gripe about ads put their
money where their mouth is?
The heartening answer is yes. “We find
that for most people, when they come and
get the full experience, the price makes
sense to them,” says Blazer. “Price-conscious
people still find value in coming here.”
Similarly, upgrading the Pacific theater
to the standards of an ArcLight brand meant
investing money in hiring more employees
to make sure that patrons never have to
search for someone to give them a hand.
“With the more features and attributes we
have, they require more staffing,” notes
Blazer. “We’ve created 45 new jobs, almost
doubling the staffing we had before. We
try to create opportunities to position our
crew members around the building so when
people come in, they have that chance to
engage.”
Blazer, a six-year ArcLight veteran, enjoys
whipping his staff into shape. “The connection
to the crew is where the most value
comes from—smiling and authenticity are
things we’re focusing on, really creating
an opportunity for our crew to connect to
a person not just as a means to an end. As
an organization, we try to do that for our
crew to create that feeling that their work
is meaningful. When they come here, they
DECEMBER 2010 BOXOFFICE 51