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Author Topic: DRIVE-INS: Car-Counters Scott D. Neff Theatre Dork Posts: 919 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Oct 1999 posted 02-20-2008 03:08 PM                        Since so many drive-ins are operated independently, does anybody still rely on Car-Counters to keep their cashiers honest? We've been testing some more modern counters like parking garages would use, but I stumbled across one of EPRAD's patent details for their Car-Counters and find the detail interesting. Does anybody still have working car counters and if so who services them? And if somebody out there has updated car counters, what are you using and what are the pros and cons?  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 02-20-2008 07:14 PM                        Nope....all gone. Too much maintenance; treadles and counters only lasted about a year or two. Individual owners don't need a counter since it is their own money. There are no "chain" owners left in drive ins. Louis  |  IP: Logged Scott D. Neff Theatre Dork Posts: 919 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Oct 1999 posted 02-20-2008 08:41 PM                        I accept the logic in that. Except I work for a chain of 6 drive-ins. And then there's DeAnza, they're a chain of drive-ins. Somebody else must have car counters!  |  IP: Logged Cameron Glendinning Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 845 From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia Registered: Dec 2005 posted 02-21-2008 03:48 AM                     Try google, plenty of matches!  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 02-21-2008 10:44 AM                        We have the remains of a drive-in chain up here. They don't use car counters... and neither do we. Unless you charge by the carload, which these days pretty much puts you close to the wrong side of the DVD window, a car counter would only tell you how many transactions you should have, not what those transactions should be. You'd probably be better off with a couple of well-placed cameras and a recorder. I had a couple of suspected 'problems' cure themselves within 2 days after I mounted one in the boxoffice. Never did get around to hooking that one up. Didn't need it after that.  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 02-21-2008 11:34 AM                        We don't have electronic car counters per say, we just do it the old fashioned way with either hand tally counters on slow nights or a separate numbered ticket from generic roll stock tickets on extremely busy nights. We don't have car load pricing at my place, but we use car counts as part of our equation in figuring nightly report data. We can look at the nightly numbers and see right away if something doesn't quite look right. On average we are drawing roughly 2.3 - 2.6 adult admissions per vehicle, and average of $14.36 +/- per vehicle in concession sales, and each car spends an average of about $30.00 per night while on the property. If any of those numbers skew way too much, then I know I have a problem.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 02-21-2008 05:18 PM                        The "point" of car counters is to alert the owner of his manager stealing. Louis  |  IP: Logged Scott D. Neff Theatre Dork Posts: 919 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Oct 1999 posted 02-21-2008 08:45 PM                        Or the point is also to alert the manager if the cashiers are stealing. We don't do carload pricing and we do track average number of adults per car etc., but we're still having issues with cashiers not registering 1 or 2 cars and pocketing the charge. As far as cameras are concerned, how do you run cameras to box offices that are so far from the main building? Our boxes are little tin shacks like these. which offer little to no overnight security.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 02-21-2008 09:08 PM                        Tele-lenses or wireless cameras. Louis  |  IP: Logged Scott McGuire Film Handler Posts: 94 From: Elmira, NY/United States Registered: Oct 2007 posted 02-22-2008 12:17 AM                     Jack said " never did hook that one up" just find some dummy cameras to put in your box office and see if that works. Just the fact that there is a camera there may solve your problem.  |  IP: Logged Brad Allen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 688 From: Evansville, IN, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 02-22-2008 05:12 PM                     Fake cameras can do wonders.  |  IP: Logged John Wilson Film God Posts: 5438 From: Sydney, Australia. Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-22-2008 05:59 PM                     We used counters only to make sure we didn't go over capacity.  |  IP: Logged Tony Ratcliff Expert Film Handler Posts: 216 From: Madison, IN, USA Registered: Mar 2002 posted 02-23-2008 04:16 PM                     Cashiers scabbing money and reselling tickets was very common when I worked the drive-ins. One place I worked the manager was the chief thief and taught the cashiers to do it. And he was able to cover it up, even with a working car counter. I think that cameras are the best way to keep people honest.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 02-24-2008 10:45 PM                        Don't want to get too far off-topic here, but... we use the RTS ticketing system. It produces one piece of paper, showing the contents of the entire car. For various reasons, pulling a fast one at our boxoffice is pretty difficult.  |  IP: Logged Scott D. Neff Theatre Dork Posts: 919 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Oct 1999 posted 02-24-2008 10:48 PM                        Currently we're on cash registers, so they get one receipt for the entire car contents so reselling isn't an issue. The issue is probably more that we don't have what people consider "tickets" like they'd receive at a walk-so they throw out the receipts much like you would your Panda Express or 7-Eleven receipt.  |  IP: Logged

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