Boxoffice Pro - August 2020

THEATER TRENDS
COMING
ATTRACTIONS
Highlights from Cinema
Entertainment Centers
Arcade
Paper tickets are no longer
required at 21st-century
arcades, where patrons
can win prizes by
redeeming their (digital,
card-based) spoils.
Ax Throwing
It might seem like an
insurance headache, but
this trendy attraction is
low-tech, low-cost, and
popular with patrons.
Bowling
Aside from the movies
themselves, bowling is the
bread and butter of the
CEC concept.
Bumper Cars
You’ll never be part of
Dom Toretto’s family, but
CEC patrons who want a
little bit of that fast and
furious action can try their
hand at bumper cars.
Glow Golf
How do you make golf
more glam? Turn off the
lights and turn up the
neon. All four of FatCats’
CEC locations offer glow
golf—pirate-themed or
space-themed, depending
on the city.
Escape Rooms
This on-trend attraction
prizes teamwork and
puzzle-solving as
groups work together
to solve the mystery of
the escape room.
Laser Tag
Santikos’s second CEC
location, in Cibolo, Texas,
offers Lasertron laser tag
for children and adults
who want a little friendly
competition.
Mini Golf
The classics are classics
for a reason, and mini golf
is still a hit among CEC
patrons.
Karaoke
South Korea loves its
karaoke rooms, a fact that
is well proven at CJ CGV’s
cultureplex model.
Pickleball
With one CEC location
under its belt, B&B
Theatres is planning
to move outdoors—at
least partially—for its
future locations. One of
the attractions will be
pickleball, a racquet sport
that combines elements
of tennis, badminton, and
ping-pong.
Rock Climbing
Work off the calories you
consumed with all that
movie theater popcorn
(no judgment) with Strike
+ Reel’s rock climbing
wall, 24 feet high and lit
by LED lights.
Ropes Course
Strap on a harness and
get your Spider-Man on
(minus web-shooters)
at Strike + Reel’s ropes
course, suspended 20 feet
above the arcade floor.
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality experiences
from companies like The
Void—which has provided
Cineplex’s The Rec Room
with some of its most
popular attractions—can
put guests inside the
world of a number of
blockbuster movies.
is performing to expectations. Cinergy has
kept a close eye on what to incorporate in
its CECs in its 11 years in the sector, always
careful to be flexible and innovative so
nothing inside the building goes stale.
“Back when we started it was all about
bowling, which is still popular, and laser tag,
which we’re moving on from,” says Benson.
“Today you have ax throwing, giant arcade
games, and escape rooms—attractions that
weren’t around even five years ago.”
Benson brings up escape rooms as
an example of a fad that can suddenly
emerge, only to become saturated and
go out of fashion just as quickly as it
came. “Five or six years ago escape
rooms barely existed in this country. At
this point, I wonder if escape rooms
haven’t already run their course—we are
thinking about not including them going
forward,” he says. “At some point it gets
saturated. Movie theaters are hard to
replicate—they’re big and expensive—but
an escape room or ax-throwing business,
they come and go. They can open up in
a retail shop with three or four thousand
square feet on a three-year lease, make
their money while it’s popular, and leave
when it starts to wane. That’s why we need
to continually reprogram our locations
with the latest and greatest concepts;
you never know when three escape-room
places could open around the corner from
you. Before you know it, everybody’s
escape-roomed out [and] your revenue
goes down. That’s a lot of square footage
dedicated to something that doesn’t make
much money anymore. We need to keep
up with all the amusement options out
there to figure out which ones are the best
and how long they might last.”
Kevin Mitchell from ShowBiz Cinemas
recognized that challenge in developing
his circuit’s CEC concept, which is why
he decided to focus on getting the basics
of the building right. “While there are
countless trendy attractions that can
be incorporated into an entertainment
center, we’ve drilled down our focus to
boutique bowling, movies, arcade games,
prize redemption, and food and beverage
concepts,” he says. “We’ve found this
allows us to be really good in those areas
without being solely dependent on a
studio release schedule, and it also allows
us to be a dominating destination zone
for entertainment while maintaining a
manageable footprint that is a good fit for
a variety of markets.”
Right: The Yard
gaming area (top) and
the Three10 restaurant
at Cineplex’s Rec
Room. Image courtesy
Cineplex
54 August 2020