BoxOffice® Pro - October 2012

ALTERNATIVE CONTENT
THEATERS
ON DEMAND
START-UP TUGG LETS
MOVIEGOERS KICKSTART
SCREENINGS
by Annlee Ellingson
Who determines which movies play at the neighborhood
movie theater this weekend? Ideally, it’s the
exhibitors themselves, local managers who screen
movies in advance and curate their selection to please
their surrounding demographic. More likely, it’s an
executive who oversees several theaters in your region,
if not throughout the country, blanketing auditoriums
with the blockbusters with the broadest appeal. And
although block booking was outlawed in 1948, it could
also be a major distributor who bundles less attractive
titles with sought-after tentpoles through creative pricing.
The one player missing from this equation? The audience.
What if movie-lovers with ticket money clenched
in their hands could book a movie at your local moviehouse?
With Tugg, they can.
■ Dubbed “theatrical on demand,” Tugg’s concept allows users, called
“promoters,” to log on to www.tugg.com and select a program from 650-
plus titles. Then they indicate the date they would like their event to take
place and choose a local theater. (With deals with major chains including
AMC, Cinemark, Rave and Regal, the Tugg network is composed of
more than 75 percent of U.S. theaters). It’s up to the promoters to tout
the event and get people to buy tickets in advance. If enough tickets are
sold within a certain timeframe, Tugg schedules the screening; if not,
ticket buyers get their money back.
“Over the past many years, as a lot of other technologies have
matured, obviously online, the ease with which people can find
content they want to see when they want to see it [has increased],”
says Tugg co-founder and CEO Nicolas Gonda,
who has worked in distribution and as a producer for
Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, the upcoming To the
Wonder), himself a Tugg board member. “There’s also
been a growing trend of crowdsourcing, whether it’s
something like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. … In a day
and age where crowdsourcing of all kinds is so present,
the movie theater is one of the most obvious destinations
because it exists in almost every community, and it is
intended for social assembly, for these shared experiences.”
Just a few months into operation—the startup launched in
March at South by Southwest—Tugg has facilitated the exhibition of
all kinds of content, from repertory titles that allow moviegoers to relive
their favorite movie theater experiences from classic crowd-pleasers to
discussion-stirring documentaries to independent films that wouldn’t
otherwise ever reach some smaller communities.
Hosting these screenings is a win-win for exhibitors. “Most movie
theaters, even really successful movie theaters, always have a little bit
of excess inventory midweek,” says Tim League, founder and CEO of
TUGG’S
TITLES INCLUDE
DOCUMENTARIES
(AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE),
CLASSICS (THE
APARTMENT), ANIMATION
(A CAT IN PARIS),
INTERNATIONAL (DAS
BOOT) AND RECENT
HITS (CHRONICLE)
Alamo Drafthouse, which has screened several dozen Tugg events. “What
Tugg does without a huge amount of effort, it enables the theater to find
programming for those slots and find a guaranteed audience for those
slots. The show doesn’t go on unless it’s going to be a successful event for
all parties involved, so it’s a fairly elegant solution.”
Once the costs of the event are covered through minimum ticket
sales, each of the participants—Tugg, the theater, the content owner and
the promoter—get a cut of revenues.
But more than supporting the bottom line, Gonda adds, Tugg screenings
help theaters fulfill their role in the community. “The goal of
most theater managers and most theater chains is for people
to consider the movie theater an extension of their own
community, reflecting the interests of that local community.
I haven’t met one theater owner whose goal
that isn’t,” he says. “Through Tugg, that becomes a
daily ritual.”
It’s not the case, though, of build-it-and-theywill-come.
“A lot of people think, ‘Hey, this is a great
movie! If I show it, people will come,’” says League.
“That’s just not the reality for any side of the business,
so you really have to do the hard work of promoting
and advertising and leveraging your friends and building
excitement and enthusiasm.” A good promoter, League adds,
will offer added value like introductions and Q&As, stunts and games,
and giveaways that enhance the experience.
“Most people have profound memories of a movie theater when it
projected something meaningful to them,” Gonda says. “Now we’re in a
day and age where that can become a regular thing, a regular event where
people can consider the movie theater to be a true reflection of their
interests. And so with that capability, we’re very confident that we’re just
at a dawn of a new era of moviegoing.”
32 BOXOFFICE PRO OCTOBER 2012