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70 INCREASE MIDWEEK BUSINESS
Vncle George Introduces Novel Plan;
Newspaper and Merchants Cooperate
BEECH GROVE, IND.—"Uncle" George
Marks, who has been operating the Grove
Theatre on weekends only since it was reopened,
has launched a Midweek Movie Club
plan designed to open the theatre two of the
other four days—Wednesday and Thursday.
Marks credits a January 19 BOXOFFICE
editorial, "Let's Fill 'Em Up," with moving
him to take action on this plan which he
had been considering for some time as a
possible solution to a small-town theatre's
poor midweek attendance.
"Your editorial on the midweek problem
moved me to action, with what results, we will
know later," Marks wrote to Ben Shlyen,
publisher of BOXOFFICE. "I had been kicking
this idea around for a long time, patterned
somewhat after the Community Concert
Series, which sells tickets to concerts in advance.
Most of the time the buyers have no
idea of who or what they are going to see.
If they don't buy a series ticket in advance,
however, they cannot buy a single ticket at
the door the night of an individual performance.
To avoid such disappointment, they
buy the series ticket. Perhaps I'm a dreamer
to think people will cherish motion pictures
that much, but with the incentive of a price
saving, it might work."
Marks' "price saving" incentive is to offer
Midweek Movie Club memberships to adults
for $1 and to children under 12 for 50 cents.
In retm-n, members will be admitted to the
Grove Theatre on each Wednesday or Thursday
for a month. Only membership ticket
holders are to be admitted on these nights, no
single admission tickets being sold on Wednesday
or Thursday at the Grove boxoffice.
Marks' first challenge was to sell the idea
to his local newspaper editor, then to the
Beech Grove merchants—enlisting the aid of
all these forces in selling the club plan to the
5,685 citizens of Beech Grove, a community
a few miles southeast of Indianapolis.
"I got my editor, Louis Luckenbill and his
associate, Don Powers, enthused about the
idea," said Marks. "The result was a front
page story."
Luckenbill and Powers, who well-remembered
the dark days in Beech Grove when
the Grove Theatre had been shuttered on a
seven-day basis, saw good reason for giving
Marks a four-column front page story under
a two-line head.
Stressing that inauguration of the Midweek
Movie Club plan depended upon sale of 500
tickets, the story carried in their Perry
Township Weekly said that the plan would
benefit everyone.
"Patrons will benefit by lower prices," said
the newspaper's story. "The theatre will
benefit by knowing it has sufficient audiences
to keep the theatre open; the community will
benefit by having an open theatre, a place
When 45 Beech
Grove, Ind., merchants
and citizens
ran this ad
CALLING ALL CITIZENS!
in the local paper
YOU CAN HELP NOW TO
to support his new
midweeli policy
idea, "Uncle"
George built more
Keep the
goodwill by sending
each sponsor a
"thank you" letter.
THEATRE
OPEN
IT WILL BE EASIER THAN
TRYING TO REOPEN IT IF FORCED
TO CLOSE
By Joining The Mid-week Movie Club Plan
ANDATTHESAMETIME ENJOY GRE+T MOVIES AT BARGAIN PRICES!
lUL Hl.'R(-H\SP A MEMBERSHIP DICOUNT llCKt-f K'OR (I ID . Far Wulu' OR »/ i QiilA
r.nL-idf. U THIS TlOrr WILL \OMlT 10LI fO THE aRO\% E\ER\ WEDNESDAY OR
IMIHM>\> l.mUNbMONTH.TIIISBRINGS THE f BICE UF h\CM \DMtSSION TO 2S, FOR
ADLLTS - 1>',f Tu KIDDIES. MID-WEEk SMO«5WILL E.\r) NO LVTf-R TH.\N9 3(1 P M HILT
AL)L LI>HM (l\1t \S.LATE^S7.» \NDSEE \lX)MPl-ETESHO\V \S THE FIRST FEATURB
WILLDt HtrtATtD .SINGLE TICKETS WILL NOT BE SOLD -O.NLY THOSE WITH A MIt>-
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.TlCt*tTSO-NS\LE AT GROVE THEATRE!
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6R0VE
HERE'S HOW
PARENTS:
THE FOLLWING MERCHANTS AND CipZENS URGE YOU TO BUY
where wholesome entertainment Is available
to children, teenagers and grownups.
"If the theatre remains closed four days a
week it puts the responsibility of maintaining
a theatre in Beech Grove on business done on
weekends. In other words, three-day operation
is required to do what normally takes
seven. If the weekend operation cannot do
enough to pay for the seven, the theatre
would have no alternative but to close its
doors. Those who remember Beech Grove
without a theatre undoubtedly do not want
this to happen again."
PARENTS' SUPPORT URGED
Beech Grove merchants also well-remembered
the business repercussions to the town
during the days when the Grove Theatre had
been shuttered. When the Perry Township
Weekly editors, at Marks' suggestion, set out
to sell a full page cooperative ad supporting
the Midweek Movie Club plan, 45 merchants,
officeholders and prominent citizens of the
town quickly pledged themselves to pay for
the ad. It appeared in the January 31 issue,
outlining the plan and especially urging parents
to buy membership cards for their children
because the theatre provides a safe place
off the street and a wholesome environment
in which neither necking nor rowdyism are
permitted by Marks.
"Whatever the outcome of the plan," wrote
Marks in a followup letter to BOXOFFICE,
"it is generating considerable comment in our
Immediate area. Our weekend business has
picked up, due, I believe, to the extra comment,
publicity and interest in our efforts.
THEATRE PATRONS RETURNING
"Another immediate result is this: patrons
stop to compliment us on our show and they
add, T hope your midweek plan works.'
Others stop and tell us, 'This is the first
time I've been out to a motion picture in
months, but we thought we'd come down and
see what all the fuss was over.' They, too, are
complimentary, and, I hope, new patrons."
Marks started the sale of membership
tickets at his boxoffice. Following appearance
of the cooperative ad in the local newspaper,
however, the participating merchants volunteered
to put the membership tickets on
sale in their respective establishments to
help Marks sell the 500 memberships that will
enable him to inaugurate the new Wednesday-Thiu-sday
policy.