BoxOffice® Pro - December 2010

THE GREAT WALL OF FANDOM
Happy guests make good art and advertisements
have a sense of pride. It’s not just just a job—they’re treated the same way
we treat our guests, and they in turn do that for our guests.”
And ArcLight keeps their ushers busy. They guide people to their assigned
seats, welcome the room at the start of the movie, wait through
the first reel to make sure the sound and image quality are perfect, and
pop in periodically to make sure both the picture and the people watching
it are tip-top—this is one theater where a texter will be tarred and
feathered, especially by the movie-lovers surrounding them.
But one thing ushers won’t do is escort late-comers to their movie.
“One of the things that we’ve learned over eight years with our ArcLight
theaters is taken from live theater: once the movie starts, we don’t
let people buy tickets and enter the theater. Theaters that let people
come in 15 minutes after the movie starts make people spend the first
part of the movie distracted by other people trying to find their seats in
the dark,” explains Dashwood. “When we first opened in Hollywood,
people really struggled with that because they were used to showing up
late to avoid the commercials. We knew we had something when after a
couple times, people came out and said they really appreciated knowing
that when the movie started, they weren’t going to have any distractions.”
A strict reputation is a good reputation. “On those rare occasions
when we’d make an exception because of rain, we’d start hearing our
guests say, “Why did you let that one person in!?” because they were so
used to not having that kind of distraction,” says Dashwood. “The good
news is, clearly our guests understand and it’s something that the community
seems to embrace by showing up a couple minutes ahead of
time.”
Inside the Beach Cities black box auditoriums, the ArcLight team
replaced the slope seating with 18-inch rise stadium seating, installed
chairs with wide armrests (“You’re not going to have to fight somebody,”
jokes Facilities Director Miraglia), and increased the size of the screens
by 50 percent. All 16 projectors have been converted from film to digital
and each room from the largest 300-seaters to the theaters a third their
size are 3D-capable.
“We designed the auditoriums to optimize the viewing experience
for the guests,” says Miraglia. “We want to reproduce the film just as the
filmmaker had intended it to be played back.”
The company chose XpanD after running some trials on the Cinerama
Dome that anchors their Hollywood location. “That’s such a
large, curved screen—we couldn’t use a silver screen because it was so
deep that it reflected against itself,” says Miraglia. He knows that both
the company and its guests are cineastes and perfectionists. “People will
notice and that’s been a motivating factor for us. We have a sophisticated
crowd who notices those choices.”
After all, this is a theater so devoted to detail that it decided not to
sell nachos at the snack bar. “That crunching could distract our guests
during the movie,” explains Steven Ramskill, senior manager of food and
beverage. Guests can request real butter on their popcorn, though many
opt for the tubs of caramel corn that have become a signature snack.
Even the cafe menu shows care. “Movies are a social experience —
people come here with friends and family and like to talk about movies
before and after, to hear about what’s going on,” says Dashwood.
Ramskill was entrusted to configure a menu that made guests choose the
ArcLight for their night out.
“The cafe is a place to meet with a friend before the movie, enjoy a
cocktail or a light appetizer, and just spend some time,” notes Ramskill.
A normal restaurant menu won’t do when you’re trying to foster conversation
and connection. “We want a menu that services the environ-
52 BOXOFFICE DECEMBER 2010