Already in Movie Theaters Near You: Ticket Subscriptions



[ad_1]

MoviePass, the subscription ticket service, is struggling to stay afloat. But the payment model that he has popularized seems to be here to stay.

AMC Theaters, the largest multiplex channel in the United States, launched its own MoviePass style service on Tuesday. For $ 20 a month, subscribers to AMC Stubs A-List can see up to three movies a week. The Alamo Drafthouse channel announced last week that it was going to start testing a service called Season Pass that would offer unlimited movies for a monthly fee. "We really appreciate the subscription model," said Tim League, general manager of Alamo Drafthouse, which operates in 10 states. "But we want to get it right, it's important for us to build a long-term, sustainable model."

AMC also said its service was "sustainable" – a not-so-subtle hit on MoviePass, which has three Millions of members, most of whom pay $ 10 a month for the opportunity to see a movie a day. Many people in Hollywood and Wall Street think that MoviePass will fail because it loses money on fat users; Helios and Matheson Analytics, owner of MoviePass, saw their publicly traded shares fall from $ 38.86 last year to 31 cents on Friday.

Theater companies are embarking on subscriptions in part because Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime in particular, expect entertainment to be served that way. Finding new ways to fill the seats is essential: admissions to North America have dropped to their lowest level in 25 years last year, although has increased by about 27% during this period.

Offers:

MoviePass

Still the dominant service, despite more and more questions as to whether it can survive. It had more than three million paying members since June 13th. The executives of MoviePass insist that the company is viable and that membership could reach 5 million by January. On Monday, Helios and Matheson told a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that she hoped to raise $ 1.2 billion over three years to fund growth.

The goal is to quickly become the Incredible Hulk – and become too big to stop. At that time, MoviePass could earn money by entering into bulk ticket pricing partnerships with movie theaters; charge fees to studios to promote new films to members; and maybe even grow enough (20 million subscribers is a goal) to demand a share of concession revenue. MoviePass should also charge subscribers more for prime time and institute surcharges for access to Imax and 3D projections.

In MoviePass Movie Theaters, the total prize is paid for each admission. People who register receive a membership card that works like a debit card. When members want to see a movie (no more than one per day), they use a MoviePass smartphone app to save to the movies. The application instantly transfers the price of a ticket to the membership card. Members in turn use the card to pay for entry.

And it all works independently of movie theaters

AMC Stubs A-List

The MoviePass system works in 91% of theaters, including more than 8,200 screens operated by AMC in the United States. But it's clumsy. Although the new AMC subscription service may have a complicated name, it works without a debit card and, unlike MoviePass, also allows all subscribers to reserve seats online.

The AMC version also includes access to Imax and other large formats Adam Aron, general manager of the AMC, has qualified the initial response to AMC Stubs A-List as "extremely positive" in a statement. In his own statement, MoviePass said that he was "delighted that the AMC has finally made the decision to adopt a model that, we have always known, will be the future of our industry. .

Movie Club

Cinemark, a channel with 4,566 movie screens in 41 states, began offering this subscription in December. It's very basic: for $ 9 a month, members can see one movie per month (no 3-D) and receive a 20% discount on concessions, among other benefits. Unused tickets return and never expire for paying members. There is no debit card and members can reserve seats online.

An out-of-the-ordinary aspect: It is relatively easy to reach humans in Movie Club's customer service.

Mark Zoradi, chief executive of Cinemark, told analysts: A conference call in May that Movie Club had 230,000 members. He stated that early results indicated that subscriptions attracted "the masses rather than the most frequent consumers who were looking for value" (MoviePass described Movie Club as "tasteless".)

Alamo Season Pass

Still in the first steps. Alamo said that its application-based service would allow for advance seating and "unlimited movies", but the company did not disclose prices. Alamo will begin to test the Season Pass at the end of July at Yonkers. Theaters in other cities will follow, although the unknown is unknown.

"We will not know it before the start of the trials, but we are ready to start," said Mr. League, general manager of Alamo Drafthouse, said, adding that he sees the plans as a way for small films to flourish. "For movies that people do not know much about, the subscription lowers the entry barrier – of course, why not check that."

Sinemia

Launched in 2015 in Turkey, this sub-radar service carries the greatest similarity with MoviePass.

Sinemia operates independently of theaters and involves a two-step process, with members choosing movies with an app and paying for them with a special debit card. Sinemia recently facilitated the startup; members no longer have to wait for cards to arrive in the mail before using their plans.

Unlike MoviePass, however, Sinemia offers tiered rates. For $ 16 a month, "elite" subscribers receive three tickets per month. "Classic" subscribers receive one ticket per month for $ 5. (Sinemia subscriptions are sold each year, so the elite package will be billed at around $ 192.) On Friday Sinemia began offering various family plans, including one that allows a family of five to go to the movies three times a month for $ 75. Rifat Oguz, the managing director of Sinemia, said in January that he hoped to have two million members within three years.

[ad_2]
Source link