Waiting in queue for cinema

Voyager2002

Cycrow wrote: »

Not just Trinidad, my local Subway does that too.

i never really understood the logic behind it. It doesn't speed anything up, the person at the back of the queue will get their food in the same amount of time, but everyone infront end up with a longer wait

This behaviour by Subway makes perfect business sense. As soon as a customer arrives you make them committed to the purchase, making it less likely that they will wander off when they know how long they will have to wait for their food.

shaun_from_Africa

Voyager2002 wrote: »

This behaviour by Subway makes perfect business sense. As soon as a customer arrives you make them committed to the purchase, making it less likely that they will wander off when they know how long they will have to wait for their food.

Good in theory but it doesn't always work like that.
I've given up waiting and simply walked away despite my half made sandwich sitting on the counter waiting for someone to finish it off and I've seen many other people do exactly the same thing.

DCFC79

Same thing happened at the cinema I used to go to, they had staff at the tills selling tickets and if you wanted food you could get it from upstairs on the way to going to the screen for your film.

Now they have got rid of the tills on the ground floor and you buy tickets from where you can get any snacks. They even used to have a bar selling alcohol but got rid of it.

Money_maker

At a fiver for about 20p's worth of popped corn, I'm not surprised.

robin58

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

I read recently that the price you pay for your ticket barely covers the cinema's rental cost for the film.
Cinemas make almost all their money from the extras.

Out of a £10 ticket price, £8 (inc vat) goes to the film distributor.

£2 (inc vat) is retained by the cinema. This is used to pay staff plus the running the building eg. Gas, Electricity, Water, Rates, Projectors ect. Basically anything that keeps the building open.

The main reasons cinemas are still open is the cost of the food stuff you buy when you walk in. It's the only way to make any money.

Before anybody says that the food is so expensive. When you buy a pint of beer/lager in a pub, do you moan it's cheaper in the supermarket?

martinbuckley

I believe that marrying a member of the Royal Family gets you in pretty quick, without having to queue.

noirre

robin58 wrote: »

Out of a £10 ticket price, £8 (inc vat) goes to the film distributor.

£2 (inc vat) is retained by the cinema. This is used to pay staff plus the running the building eg. Gas, Electricity, Water, Rates, Projectors ect. Basically anything that keeps the building open.

I don't know if this is different in the UK, but at least in Finland, the way distributors price their movies depends on the week. First week is always the most expensive one, with the distributor taking considerably higher percentage of the ticket sales that say, on week 6 or 10. First week also normally includes a minimum rental fee (although this may be the case with other weeks as well, depending on the distributor), and if the agreed percentage (say, 40% of ticket sales) does not reach this minimum (for illustrating purposes, let's say it is £500), then the cinema will have to pay the minimum rental and make up for the missing amount from its own pockets.

So for example, if a ticket costs £10, and the distributor is taking either 40% of the sales or the £500 minimum - which ever is higher - the cinema needs to sell 500/4 = 125 tickets on the opening week to that particular movie to avoid having to go into its own portion of the ticket sales. And of course, each movie is charged separately. This makes running small cinemas with few screen a real gamble, as taking in new movies can be really expensive if the customers do not come on that opening week, but running on old fumes makes you lose to the competition.

The main reasons cinemas are still open is the cost of the food stuff you buy when you walk in. It's the only way to make any money.

Before anybody says that the food is so expensive. When you buy a pint of beer/lager in a pub, do you moan it's cheaper in the supermarket?

Could not have said it better myself. :beer:

robin58

noirre wrote: »

I don't know if this is different in the UK, but at least in Finland, the way distributors price their movies depends on the week. First week is always the most expensive one, with the distributor taking considerably higher percentage of the ticket sales that say, on week 6 or 10. First week also normally includes a minimum rental fee (although this may be the case with other weeks as well, depending on the distributor), and if the agreed percentage (say, 40% of ticket sales) does not reach this minimum (for illustrating purposes, let's say it is £500), then the cinema will have to pay the minimum rental and make up for the missing amount from its own pockets.

So for example, if a ticket costs £10, and the distributor is taking either 40% of the sales or the £500 minimum - which ever is higher - the cinema needs to sell 500/4 = 125 tickets on the opening week to that particular movie to avoid having to go into its own portion of the ticket sales. And of course, each movie is charged separately. This makes running small cinemas with few screen a real gamble, as taking in new movies can be really expensive if the customers do not come on that opening week, but running on old fumes makes you lose to the competition.

I quoted the 80% figure as most people in the UK go and see a film in the first 2-3 weeks of a new film.

I believe there is some form off break figure involved. It really depends on what cinema company is showing the film and the distributor.

Bigger distributors have a different view on this than smaller distributors who are just glad to get screen space.

In the UK the company standard is usually 80% of the ticket sales at first, mostly for the first 3-4 weeks of a popular film, before it goes down. Can be higher if the distributor thinks they can squeeze a few more pence out of the paying customer. Have seen 90%

Has been known to be even more. When E.T. came out in the 80's, cinemas were charged 100% ticket of ticket sales for the first two weeks. Then it went down to 90, then 80.

The percentage goes down over the weeks to a minimum of I believe of 40% of a films continuous run. But break that continuous run then the percentage jumps up.

I once ran a kids film to nobody for two days as it was cheaper to do this cost wise to get the lower percentage for the following weekend.


The other pet hate I have is the way people always moan about the price of cinema tickets.

What about all the other ways you pay to see it. I can think of at least 5 other ways they pay for it over the life time of a film. They don't moan about that.

JJG

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

I read recently that the price you pay for your ticket barely covers the cinema's rental cost for the film.
Cinemas make almost all their money from the extras.

It's usually a percentage of the ticket price and can be as high as 90-95% for the big blockbusters.

Edit: Only just saw Robins post. Which is completely correct.

forgotmyname

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

If you think that 4 minutes per customer is bad, don't go a "fast" food eatery in Trinidad (it's mainly KFC and Subway but very few burger joints).
They seem to have slow service down to a fine art and if there are 4 or 5 people in front of you in the queue then you know you are likely to have a 20 to 30 minute wait.

You do not need to go that far, Burger King in Truro, 35 minutes for 2 Rodeo Burgers, fries and drinks. Total dissapointment when it looked like a childrens burger also, it was the smallest burger I have ever had from them. I do not use them that often and now likely to use them even less.