AMC Theatres Unveils Movie Ticket Prices Based on Seat Locations (1 Viewer)

[Alex...]

AMC Theatres is adding sightlines to its cinema experience, along with blockbuster movies.

The mega-exhibitor is following music concerts, sporting events and other entertainment venues in setting its ticket pricing strategy to sightlines for seating selections. AMC patrons attending cinemas after 4 p.m. will be able to pay different prices based on their proximity to the movie screen within the auditorium.

That will put seats in Value Sightline, Standard Sightline, and Preferred Sightline sections. Standard sightline seats will be the most common in auditoriums and available for the traditional cost of a movie ticket.

Patrons will pay less for front row seats via value sightline tickets and preferred sightline seats will typically be in the middle of the auditorium and cost slightly more than standard sightline seats, AMC said.

The mega-exhibitor, which has already introduced sightline seating in select markets, is betting movie-goers will pay more for a better view of their favorite Hollywood titles, as do patrons of music and sporting events.

“Sightline at AMC more closely aligns AMC’s seat pricing approach to that of many other entertainment venues, offering experienced-based pricing and another way for moviegoers to find value at the movies,” Eliot Hamlisch, executive vp and CMO of AMC Theatres in a statement.

Sightline ticketing for its movies also gets AMC closer to event pricing typical of live entertainment events like concerts and sports where consumers pay more or less for seats based on how close they want to be to the action or musical performances.

AMC Theatres Unveils Movie Ticket Prices Based on Seat Locations

Pricing options for Hollywood movies in its theaters will be based on where patrons want to sit in an auditorium.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[Josh Steinberg]

For better or worse, this has been a long time coming. Theaters have been embracing up charges for years, countering declining attendance by raising rates on the audience members that do remain.

For sold out and crowded shows in high demand, people will pay. It’s an extra dollar in my neighborhood. The average person doesn’t know exactly what a movie cost is anyway since it changes slightly based on theater, time of day and film selection already. And for uncrowded shows, in practical terms the theaters don’t have the resources to send ushers into auditoriums that have sold three tickets on a Wednesday night to make sure everyone is in the right place.

A-List members get the fee waived.

So this maybe raises the grosses ever so slightly on a big tentpole opening, goes unnoticed by most people most of the time, and maybe convinces a few people on the fence about A-list to get it.

All of my local AMCs have basically converted from 300-500 seat auditoriums with regular seats to 75-100 seat auditoriums with recliner seats. They’ve been able to do so because the demand isn’t there for the larger capacity, but they’ve got to make that up somehow.

 

[TravisR]

I'm assuming the price difference will be slight but that's ridiculous. I hope AMC has the good sense to get rid of this before it's even rolled out when they inevitably are ripped apart on social media.

Just a guess but I assume that Ant-Man is when they first plan to victimize their patrons with this one.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Looks like $1 more for center seats, and $2 off front row seats. At least by me.

 

[Sam Favate]

This is awful. No different than the airlines nickel-and-dimeing you every damn thing.

 

[TravisR]

Looks like $1 more for center seats, and $2 off front row seats. At least by me.

Holy shit. I thought it'd be like a quarter at the absolute most.

I get the idea of preferred seating when applied to a concert because that's in a big theater or a stadium but in my opinion, a movie theater in a chain theater isn't a big enough room to have that kind of a price difference.

 

[Edwin-S]

All these companies like NetFlix, AMC, etc think they have too many customers and would like to get rid of them. They are going about it in the right way.

 

[TravisR]

All these companies like NetFlix, AMC, etc think they have too many customers and would like to get rid of them. They are going about it in the right way.

Yeah, if their goal is to look bad, they're accomplishing it. I look forward to AMC quickly saying "Oh this was just an idea and we're not ready to roll it out" when there's zero support for them ripping people off to have a good seat in a 150 foot room.

 

[Edwin-S]

Yeah, if their goal is to look bad, they're accomplishing it. I look forward to AMC quickly saying "Oh this was just an idea and we're not ready to roll it out" when there's zero support for them ripping people off to have a good seat in a 150 foot room.

One of the issues is that looking bad appears to have become a goal to aim for and not something to be avoided over the last few years.

I was watching Wakanda Forever last night and there were several scenes where the actions of the characters had me asking the question, "is being an asshole to people now considered a trait of strength and not just sign of an asshole"? WF is not the only film I have seen with that trend.

 

[dpippel]

Yeah, no thanks AMC. Looks to be another nail in the coffin if you ask me.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

I'd pay more for a screening that didn't have chatty people and cellphones. How about that, AMC?

 

[TravisR]

Shockingly, I'm seeing no support for this (idiotic) idea on social media.

This is a worse idea than Netflix's password sharing debacle last week. At least, Netflix had some moral high ground of "You should pay for what you use" but AMC is just saying "We're charging you more because we want to." In the end, it won't even matter because there's no way that they'll actually be able to roll this out. It's already a PR disaster and it hasn't even been two hours.

 

[Malcolm R]

If they're not monitoring the auditoriums, it sounds like you just buy the cheapest ticket, wait and see how full the room gets, then change your seat to a better one when the lights go down.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

 

[Malcolm R]

Yep, someone at AMC management is apparently a math genius.

No wonder they're failing as a business.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

There are precious few sold out shows, hence their reasoning, presumably.

What happens when I buy an aisle seat to a quiet, sparsely attended show and then move to the middle after the trailers?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Probably nothing. Exhibition is hemorrhaging money. They can’t afford to staff up to patrol the auditoriums.

I would imagine if anyone takes an empty, more expensive reserved seat that actually belongs to someone else, they’ll sort it out then.

I often go to either weekday afternoon shows, or evenings at the beginning of the week. The afternoon shows are exempt from this policy. The evening ones aren’t. When I go in the evening, there are typically less than five other people there. I doubt there’s gonna be a fight over seating in that circumstance.

And for the people dying to see Ant-Man on opening weekend, they’re probably not gonna notice that a $14.50 ticket is now $15.50.

My local arena is Madison Square Garden, and for the past few years, the first four seats in from each aisle are assessed an extra surcharge, it’s at least $20 more per ticket over the base price for that row.

Unfortunately, this is just the world we live in now. As the divide widens between people who attend events in person and those who don’t, venues have sought to make up that revenue not by attracting a wider audience but by extracting more money from the audience that remains. From my admittedly limited point of view, this doesn’t seem that different from Regal charging more on Thursdays-Sundays, or Warner titles being priced higher than the base price on their opening weekends. Everyone is trying to figure out how to get by.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

What happens when I buy an aisle seat to a quiet, sparsely attended show and then move to the middle after the trailers?

It will go something like this...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Understanding why a policy exists is different than agreeing with it, though. I will find a polite way to tell my local AMC management that I think this is a dick move. It’s exhausting being nickeled and dimed everywhere for everything all the time.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Maybe it's just because I don't go often anyway on top of having high prices in NYC area, but I don't personally see much problem w/ this (at least for areas like NYC) if we're only talking a dollar more for the handful premium seats during peak times, which amounts to something like <=5% hike, except on deeply discounted Tuesdays (when the percentage would be higher), and $2 less for the awful seats -- that lower pricing for those seats should be welcomed by those who actually ever use those.

I'm not saying I like it or anything, but really, I don't believe there's anything actually wrong w/ it.

_Man_