Boxoffice Pro - October 2019

series targeting the college-aged audience
in neighboring College Station. While
the first three films of the series brought
out lively crowds, the exhibitor admitted
that audiences slowly dissipated as the
series ran into its final weeks. “You have
to make sure you can sustain that initial
interest,” he said. “I don’t care how big
a fan of something you are, it’s a really
big commitment for a fan to go to every
single one of these events.”
Moreover, event screenings shouldn’t
be seen as a “plug-and-play” solution.
Crafting events tied to local audiences—and
promoting them accordingly—
might be a task best suited for smaller
exhibitors, as Johnson, who has been
with Flix since it only had one location,
noted during a panel session. “I remember
those days very well, when you could
put a lot of time and effort in putting
together an event for your cinema,” he
said. “That gives you a real competitive
advantage if you have one or two locations;
it’s really hard to do once you start
getting up into a half dozen locations
or more. It can be like herding kittens
because you just don’t have the same control
over it across each location. If you’re
a single-unit operator, you own your
domain—your eyes are on everything.”
The future holds even more innovations
that exhibitors have only just
begun to explore. In a panel covering
microcinema and on-demand screenings,
Tony Adamson, SVP of strategic
planning at GDC Technology of
America, spoke about the potential of
his company’s cinema on-demand offering,
GoGoCinema. The service, first
announced at CinemaCon 2018, allows
patrons to book a private screening
from a list of titles hosted by GDC.
Patrons would then be able to visit their
closest participating cinema to enjoy
their title of choice in the comfort of
a big-screen auditorium. While the
concept might be difficult to scale in the
United States, Adamson noted that it’s
finding success in Asia through the rise
of microcinemas—makeshift screening
rooms in spaces not typically associated
with commercial exhibition. Some
cinemas have actually outfitted small
auditoriums for private bookings, a concept
similar to booking a private-room
karaoke session.
Ultimately, CinéShow 2019 helped
highlight the ways exhibition is currently
competing with in-home and destination
entertainment options through its own
avenues of innovation. As content availability
beyond studio tentpoles becomes a
growing concern with the rise of streaming
platforms, marketing efforts like those
described above will play a bigger role in
engaging audiences and promoting repeat
cinema visits. Five out of the last seven
years have introduced new record-setting
tallies at the domestic box office;
the audience is already there. The key to
sustaining this success, as these marketing
initiatives show, rests on finding ways to
keep bringing that same audience back to
theaters as often as possible.
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