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Author Topic: Anyone know about Republic theaters? Tracy Bellar Film Handler Posts: 72 From: Sciotoville, Oh. Registered: Mar 2005 posted 05-16-2005 03:33 PM                        A new theater chain has built a theater in my area. Rumours have it that they are buying the theater I'm working in. They are out of Lexington,Ky or Indiana and Illinios. Has anyone heard of them and what they are like? I suspect a guy came in my theater this weekend checking it out. I heard that when they come into a theater and buy it out, the first thing they do is fire all existing employees. They are rumoured to not carry over a single employee.  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 05-16-2005 04:13 PM                     http://www.republictheatres.com/resources/pages/aboutus.htm  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-16-2005 08:54 PM                     quote: Tracy Bellar They are rumoured to not carry over a single employee. That's a bite! No "grandfather" clause at at all. Yet, just hope that this is just rumour sakes and not factual, for that just not right. Yet, be kinda stupid for one company to take over another company and completely clean out house where the existing employess already know something that can help out the new ownership in operations-just have to be "retrained" to their operational policies. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Tracy Bellar Film Handler Posts: 72 From: Sciotoville, Oh. Registered: Mar 2005 posted 05-16-2005 10:52 PM                        Well this isn't my first ride on the merry-go-round you know. I know that rumours fly when employees don't have all the info. I was just hoping others might have dealt with the company so I would get a better idea of what was going to happen. My Dad is probably going to retire when it happens. Since I've been there off and on for 27 years I thought it might carry some weight. However, because I was related to someone in management (My Dad) I was never elegible to be a Manager. If My Dad retires I really Don't want to work with our Assistant because he's a screw-up but he is a good kiss ass so he gets in tight with the owners that appreciate a yes man that doesn't have any common sense or mechanical abilities. I know the place would change drastically and I agree it needs to. But, When you don't know what to expect you get a little nervous. We always had a great staff until the last four to eight years. We always had a small almost family atmosphere. So a big chain would be kind of hard to get used to. Our theater is run down a little and needs a face-lift. I hope that would be a high priority. I just wish that it would be more than superficial. I suspect a guy that works for Republic came in and scoped the place out this weekend. He came by himself complaining about everything. our showtimes and when we shut boxoffice down after matinees. He was real late and complained that closing the B.O. after the matinee crowd was in was an inconvienence to him. This was alway our theater hours and policy to keep hours down. Complaining like this really is baseless. An employee can't do anything about it.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-16-2005 11:48 PM                     quote: Tracy Bellar He came by himself complaining about everything. our showtimes and when we shut boxoffice down after matinees ..wooooo! That is not a good operating procedure to have anywhere (sorry to make such a comment on this...), for I used to work at a circuit that did this practice as well, and when the Dist. Manager came through and found out about this, the manager of that theatre got such a huge heinie reaming and a severe writeup warning it wasn't funny. For the DM simply mentioned that the B.O. NEVER shuts down at any time for any reason-this is where we make the money. If Republic comes into your town, they might just build new, insead of fussing with remodeling something that needs remodeling. ..maybe if they do, you should try over there. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Anslem Rayburn Master Film Handler Posts: 476 From: Yuma, AZ, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 05-17-2005 05:57 AM                     Without knowning anything about this specific company, I will say: Anyone who fires everybody is an idiot. You can look at employee records and make someone interview to keep their job, but blindly getting rid of the old for the sake of the new is a bad policy. Shutting down box office during business hours is retarded. I can take one box person off register and put another one on in a matter of 10 seconds. They each login under a different name and password, so the change is almost seamless. You simply prepare a starting drawer for the next person out of "change money" (that's what we call it), and take the first person's "advance" and sales to the office for counting. I would be pissed off if a cashier change at the grocery store(something I need to survive as a human) took more than 1 minute, so I fail to understand what is acceptable about it taking that long at a LUXURY (the movies). DO NOT CLOSE DURING NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS. If my box hours are posted 11am to 10pm, I will not close for a single minute during that period; barring a power outage or government-enforced reason (bomb threat, etc.). Even if the computers fail (as happened just last week when a hard drive on the manager station died), we sell hand roll tickets with a manager on hand to record both box office and concession sales. It's all recorded by hand and verified by security camera. The bottom line is that the show must go on... When the dust settles and the system is back up (shouldn't take more than a few hours if you use a reputable company), you ring in the sales that took place during you "down-time" and everything is cozy again. We actually lost a whole day's worth of box office and snack bar sales, but used our video and manager's logs to re-create them. We keep a back-up of each in case the distribs or tax men have a question about these days.  |  IP: Logged Mike Spaeth Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1129 From: Marietta, GA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-17-2005 08:08 AM                        Why on God's green earth would you CLOSE the box office in the middle of the day??? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  |  IP: Logged Kelly Skaggs Film Handler Posts: 68 From: Springdale UT Registered: Jul 2003 posted 05-17-2005 08:29 AM                        Back in 90, I worked at a Premiere 4 plex. We had Sat. and Sun. Matinees only at 1 an 3 Then ran our evening set at 7 and 9. We would close the box office at from 3:30 to 6:30. This was in a small town and would be lucky to do 1000 people a day. Maybe they do not run grind, would be my guess.  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 05-17-2005 09:54 AM                     Believe it or not, there are many smaller theatres (4 screens or less), that do not have computerized ticketing, and therefore only sell tickets for the next show, usually 15 to 30 minutes before showtime, with the boxoffice closed inbetween.  |  IP: Logged Mike Spaeth Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1129 From: Marietta, GA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-17-2005 12:30 PM                        Why would you run 1,3 and then 7 and 9??? What a waste of payroll ... throw that 5 in there ...  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-17-2005 12:41 PM                        Most of these places would send the employees home from 5-6:30. No payroll wasted. I don't see any problem with closing the boxoffice until 30-60 minutes prior to the start of the next show. It wouldn't work for a gigaplex, but it is SOP in most singles. Almost none of those places have (or need or want) computerized ticketing.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-17-2005 01:24 PM                     ..or a small "mom and pop" theatre that runs a 2pm matinee on weekends, then shut down until the 7 and 9pm shows... I can see the "dumping" the 5pm - that time set for some is a momey loser for the small theatre owners. That time is "dinner time and get home time" for quite a few people. Kids and young adults that come to the movies at this time don't worry about this - They've ran away from home anyway (lol). -Monte  |  IP: Logged Jeremy Fuentes Mmmm, Dr. Pepper! Posts: 1168 From: Corpus Christi, TX United States Registered: Jan 2004 posted 05-17-2005 01:31 PM                     We run shows 1200, 220, 445, 7 and 920(approx. times), without computerized tickets, and never close box office. Of course we have seperate Automaticket machines for the matinee and evening shows.  |  IP: Logged Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 05-17-2005 02:05 PM                     Interesting that Republic Theatres uses a logo very similar to Republic Pictures. I wonder if that is bordering on copyright infringement.  |  IP: Logged Edward Jurich Master Film Handler Posts: 305 From: Las Vegas USA Registered: Jul 2003 posted 05-17-2005 09:22 PM                     quote: Robert E. Allen Interesting that Republic Theatres uses a logo very similar to Republic Pictures. I wonder if that is bordering on copyright infringement. I noticed that the EAGLE LODGE here has an Eagle for it's logo that looks exactly like the Republic Theater Eagle.  |  IP: Logged

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