Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Minimum amount of time between shows

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Ground Level » Minimum amount of time between shows (Page 1)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Author

Topic: Minimum amount of time between shows

Jason Moore
Film Handler

Posts: 4
From: Raleigh, NC, United States
Registered: Aug 2006

posted 08-21-2006 06:42 PM

When you program your showtime schedule, what is the minimum amount of time you would put between a start time and the endtime of the previous show? The reason I ask is that I have a mandated timeframe with which to program 5 shows of any film less than 120 minutes long and that means I have to be very careful how I schedule. I was just curious about where folks on this forum draw the line.

| IP: Logged

Ron Curran
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 504
From: Springwood NSW Australia
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 08-21-2006 06:48 PM

That's a difficult one Jason. 15 minutes absolute minimum - you don't want to rush people and you don't want them standing in the foyer longer than necessary.

For kid's films you need at least 25 minutes for the decontamination of the auditorium.

If you have paid advertising, you can't run it before the audience is allowed in.

| IP: Logged

Caleb Johnstone-Cowan
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 593
From: London, UK
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 08-21-2006 08:51 PM

I would suggest a bare minimum of ten minutes between shows. Any less and you piss off your floor staff and projectionists no end, and you're more likely to run late.

Ideal gap would be 20 minutes, 30 minutes for busy films. However it depends on efficiency and number of floor staff, the type of film and how far it is into its run, and how busy you are in the mornings. You can get away with five minutes in the morning in a smallish house.

Five shows for a 120 minute film is approaching a joke, unless you run late shows every day. That's a 140 minute programme with ads included, would need a 150 minute gap between shows in the day and 160 minutes in the eveing.

Our programming is erratic at best. Three minutes is the shortest and ninety minutes is the longest I've seen.

| IP: Logged

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-21-2006 09:05 PM

You can adjust based on the film's popularity too. If we're running a stinker, where we'll only get a handful of people to each show, 5 minutes is enough. If we're showing a hit movie, I usually try to leave at least 25 minutes between shows.

| IP: Logged

Aaron Mehocic
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 804
From: New Castle, PA, USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-21-2006 09:06 PM

Agreed that 15 minutes minimum is best. Years ago we didn't run any 5:00 shows which made for anywhere from an hour to hour and a half down time between the 3:00 and 7:00. That made great time for maintaining equipment or cleaning the booth, but in no way improved our bottom line. Classic case of old style management verses new.

Down-time is also dependent on the number of trailers in your packs. More trailers, the less downtime. Few managers I've ever met have included trailers in their overall running times and looked foolish when shows were routinely dropping five to ten minutes after they were due to start. Our policy is four trailers maximum. On my make-ups three is the limit.

| IP: Logged

Charles Greenlee
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 801
From: Savannah, Ga, U.S.
Registered: Jun 2006

posted 08-21-2006 09:54 PM

quote: Aaron Mehocic
Few managers I've ever met have included trailers in their overall running times and looked foolish when shows were routinely dropping five to ten minutes after they were due to start.

Its odd, when I worked for Carmike, we alloted a flat amout for trailers, either 15 or 20min. It normally works fine, but if you have a required trailer list of long trailers it can be a problem. I've seen a show, which had a 5min downtime due to required showtimes, that had a longer(than the flat time) trailer set, end up dropping 1 min after the next scheduled start time, fortunatly the following downtime was long enough the tardiness didn't affect things. I average about 1 min to fully thread, with framing and automation reset. So you can figure for that week, that that show started 2 min late.

| IP: Logged

Caleb Johnstone-Cowan
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 593
From: London, UK
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 08-21-2006 09:59 PM

quote: Aaron Mehocic
Down-time is also dependent on the number of trailers in your packs. More trailers, the less downtime. Few managers I've ever met have included trailers in their overall running times and looked foolish when shows were routinely dropping five to ten minutes after they were due to start. Our policy is four trailers maximum. On my make-ups three is the limit.

We are given a trailer plan for each film each week from our advertising agency and have to adhere to that, this will vary from ten to nearly thirty minutes. The timesheet shows the film length and the amount of ads/trails, and then the total run time.

I had a situation once where the manager screwed up programming, underestimated how many ads were in the film and gave us a 20 minute over-run on each show.

We had to clean with lights up and customers in the screen during the credits, then when the last one left let the next shows customers in whilst the credits were still rolling. That was just to get the show starting five minutes late.

Cue incredible amount of apologies by myself, no idea where the managers were every time for that week.

| IP: Logged

James Westbrook
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1133
From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 08-21-2006 10:37 PM

My theatre runs Firstlook and we have to allow a minimum of 30 minutes intermission to allow the program to run properly. When we are busy, I allow 40 minutes plus.

| IP: Logged

Aaron Mehocic
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 804
From: New Castle, PA, USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-22-2006 11:15 AM

quote: Caleb Johnstone-Cowan
We are given a trailer plan for each film each week from our advertising agency and have to adhere to that, this will vary from ten to nearly thirty minutes.

As an independent, we are not beholden to any agency when programing our trailers. Our policy is to give preference to those trailers also produced by the same studio as the feature to be shown. Then one or two extra at our projectionist's disgression.

If we permitted 30 minutes to ads and trailers there would be small riots in each of our auditoriums. A former assistant manager used to program as many as six trailers in his packs. By the time the last greenband hit the screen, more customers were more sour than excited to see the movie.

| IP: Logged

Gary Crawford
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 200
From: Neptune NJ USA
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 08-22-2006 12:27 PM

At our independent single-screen, our rule is 15 minutes between shows. Two trailers maximum on the front end, and the 5 minutes for them is included into the run time schedule. Seems to work just fine.

| IP: Logged

Eric Hooper
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 532
From: Fort Worth, TX, USA
Registered: May 2003

posted 08-22-2006 03:58 PM

You can leave 2hrs 15min in between shows just like the UA Stonestown Twin in San Francisco... [Eek!]

(See showtimes on Fandango for Inconvenient Truth for Friday 08/25).

| IP: Logged

Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-22-2006 04:08 PM

Whatever you do, please do _not_ send ushers in to clean the auditorium before the film is over and the house lights are up. As a patron, I always hate it when staff enter the theatre (and, occasionally, turn on the cleaning lights) while the credits are still running.

From what I have seen, 10-20 minutes of time between shows is common. Less for single-admission double-features.

| IP: Logged

Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 08-22-2006 04:12 PM

quote: Ron Curran
For kid's films you need at least 25 minutes for the decontamination of the auditorium.

I love the way that is said. Decontamination... that's about right for kid's shows.....

| IP: Logged

Phil Blake
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 558
From: esperance western australia
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 08-23-2006 10:05 AM

We have 4 minutes between sessions , that is from finish of credits to start of slides. This is the norm for average shows , when we have blockbusters , the first week we allow 15 minutes between shows. During the quiet times we actually run with a minute or two overlap between sessions for the main reason being that sessions prior to 11.30am are not economic nor are sessions after 8.30pm so we endeavour to program up 5 shows per day between 12.00 noon to 8.30pm in each cinema more if they have short running times.

It puts allot of pressure on if busy as we dont have ushers or cleaners , the operator does this role but we get by and it makes this day go fast.

| IP: Logged

Anslem Rayburn
Master Film Handler

Posts: 476
From: Yuma, AZ, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 08-26-2006 02:59 AM

We currently run 30 to 40 minutes between shows. It has eliminated lines to get into the auditoriums, increased our per cap, and made our customers much happier. We used to run 20 to 25 minutes, and people would routinely show up 45 minutes prior to the start time, causing lines that ran outside, where it is routinely over 100 degrees. Tons of complaints from customers. We switched when we opened X-Men 3, saw our lines reduce and our concessions sales increase dramatically, and have no plan to go back. It really is something that needs to be done on a per location basis, to maximize patron satisfaction without decreasing ticket sales by slashing number of shows. Delicate balancing act.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.