Single screen staffing (and other small locations)

[James Wyrembelski]

Just sitting here on the first quiet Saturday matinee in a while. I sent the one employee I had home before she returns for the evening show and it made me want to ask how everyone staffs the floor of their theatres? Mainly singles but even smaller twins and the like. Do you do tickets/snack together? Or do you have an actual ticket booth that's regularly used?

As of reopening in 2021 it's been running with just me and another person for every show. Once Top Gun hit, our shows have been so consistent that I've added a person back to the ticket booth. I had been including tickets at the concession counter but after selling out last Friday with just me and another working, I added the ticket booth back on our more consistently busy showtimes.

I can easily do over 100 with just me and another with no problem for crowds such as Top Gun where concessions are pretty straightforward. When all of the large families and kids showed up last Friday for JP filling 165 seats out of 180 was a tad challenging Now that I'm doing a mix between using the booth and concession stand based on the day/time, it's going pretty smooth.

[Carsten Kurz]

We have a large old single (400 seats). Before Covid, we had increased our audience over the past 10 years considerably. We always had a team of three - ticket, concessions, plus a 'projectionist' who was responsible for house and projection tech, and supervision. We established some break points as to when one of these people would leave after admission if attendance was low. So, some nights, we would have three people, and some with smaller attendance had 3 for the first part, and 2 for the remaining time. Now, since we reopened after the first lock down, attendance is noticeably lower, and we went to a staff of just two. Except for nights when we know there is a higher attendance or more work to do. So, e.g. for our sunday kids shows, we have three. For the first showings of 'No time to die', we staffed up to 4. So, some flexibility, but in general, we went from 3 to 2. Those two, however, always stay, a few years ago we decided that it's not safe to run shows with a single 'normal' staff person. I myself do it occasionally, but we don't allow this for ordinary staff.


Our lobby historically is not set up for a combined ticket and concession sale. It is not impossible to arrange it so that a single person can do it, but it's a bit of an effort, and we are a landmark, so, changes can only be temporarily at best.

[Adam Fraser]

I prefer to have at least 3 people on staff in our 450 seat single. I will go with two if attendance is expected to be under 50 people, and sometimes by myself in the middle of the winter. If we expect to have more than 200 patrons, I want 4 people total. We will ask employees if they want to go home on a very slow night, but will never require that they go home.

Some of my reasoning is to keep concession lines short and per-caps up, but the main reason I prefer to be properly staffed is the safety of our customers. I feel we have a responsibility to keep a proper number of employees on staff in the event of a fire/tornado/power outage/violent customer, and the timing of those events is far from predictable. I would hate to have sent all my employees home on a 200 patron night and the power go out (or worse) and have to deal with the fallout.

[Darin Steffl]

When I bought my theatre, it had a ticket booth and 2 selling stations at the concession stand. The ticket booth was wasteful and useless in my opinion because we want to sell tickets/concessions together so we have a chance to upsell and get people to see and smell the popcorn. I'm positive our per cap is higher when we removed the ticket booth.

On weeknights, we've often had just one staff working because those nights are slow. It was different for Top Gun so we made sure to have two people working. If it's really busy, we'll have 2 staff and myself or family help out. If there's 3 of us there, there's 2 on the POS and 1 behind the kettle scooping and popping.

Our 17-18 year old staff have usually closed solo even if we start the show with 2-3 people total to get through the rush. Since we've hired new 14-16 year olds, some are worried about having these younger kids close alone and I agree for safety reasons only, not because the closing tasks require 2 people, because they don't. So if we always keep two staff on duty from open to close, it will cost us more in payroll but it will certainly be safer. Maybe in this day and age, it's just a "must-do" to make sure someone working alone at closing isn't an easy target for a robbery or assault.

If we're going to always have 2 on staff, then I hope we can stay busier to keep the kids busy.

So far, Jurassic World has been slow and Lightyear has been non-existent. Like 14 people on Friday and only 13 people so far today for a 2:45 and 5:30pm showing. I planned for 100+ patrons Friday night for Lightyear so I'm not sure what the problem is. It's Disney, Pixar, PG rating, and looks good and usually kids movies are always busy for us.

[Mike Blakesley]

We have six teenage employees who run the concession stand. We only ever need two at a time, but by having six we can work around just about any of their school activities. We tell them all if that if they want to get more hours, the way to do it is "be available" for work, but most of them are content to get fewer hours as a trade-off for being able to be in all the activities at school.

Normally I schedule two people each night on Fri-Sat-Sun, and one on the other nights -- except when a brand new movie is opening, then the first week I put two on every night. Then we see how the 2nd weekend goes, if it's still really busy I'll add people to the upcoming weeknights. For the days we have matinees (Saturday and Sunday), the same kids work both shows. If we have a movie coming in that we know is going to be a bit of a flop, I'll just schedule one person each night.

The crew has to clean and re-stock the concession and then they can leave for the night, unless we have asked one of them to stay and close.

We have a lengthy checklist of all the stuff they need to get done every night, but for the less-busy weeknights, we have another list of extra cleaning activities they have to do before leaving:

- Monday: Remove everything from the back counter and clean the countertop thoroughly (as opposed to just wiping around all the stuff that's kept on the counter)
- Tuesday: Deep clean the soda machines (remove the nozzles and soak in magic cleaning solution; clean, wipe down and shine up everything else)
- Wednesday: Deep clean the popcorn machine (basically the same as daily cleaning, except they have to empty the old-maids drawer, and remove and clean the cabinet screen. Everything else including the kettle is cleaned every day.)

My wife and I run the boxoffice. I am responsible for the movie, and she takes care of ticket sales. We try to make it so everyone who was in the door by showtime is in their seats by the time the feature starts. Sometimes I will add an extra trailer or two "on the fly" if the concession is running slow (common with a lot of kids in attendance), which looks seamless to the audience if I do my job right. Beyond that, I am usually in the role of problem-solver. I'll get more ice for the concession, open doors for wheelchair users, help people find seats, change soda boxes, reload toilet paper dispensers....whatever comes up.

We have two other adults who work for us: One is a janitor and the other is an "occasional" manager who comes in if we're both going to be gone for any reason.

People generally seem to like working here. Most of the teens will stay on until a week or so before they leave for college. And a good share of them will volunteer to be on our call list, so if they're home from college for a weekend they can take a shift if somebody wants a night off. I always joke that nobody ever has a "last day of work" here because you never know when you'll get called back to work. A couple of years ago, a girl who worked here in the 80s watched the place for me one night when my wife and I had to be somewhere else.

[Frank Cox]

Around here it's just me and my wife, or sometimes just me by myself.

We don't do the "employee" thing at all.

[Marcel Birgelen]

If you're running a single screen, you can probably run most shifts with two or three people, but the problem you'll face is that you'll need to employ more than three, simply to cover for availability and the fact that actually showing up for work doesn't seem to be a given anymore...

[Mark Lane]

Single screen theater.. 210 seats. Family owned (3 people) and a staff of 4 teens. This gives us enough people to be flexible as at least one teen will have something going on on any given day (school, sickness, band, prom, family, etc).

We have a ticket widow that is on the sidewalk. My sister works the ticket booth.
We have a small lobby and the concession line can extend outside the theater and down the sidewalk. One person works the lobby and handles any problems. We have one person working the cash register, one person working the soda station, one person working the popcorn station and one person who helps butter popcorn, deals with soft serve ice cream and expedites to keep the line moving as fast as possible.
Most people buy concessions so it is very possible to have to process 100+ people at the concession stand during the 30 minutes before the movie starts. Our teen staff averages 20 seconds to fill each person's order.

It is impressive to watch the teens work. We have an old system.. No Point of Purchase system, no computer.. it is all done by memory. The expediter or cashier calls out the orders and the teens fill those orders,, they can be working three to five orders behind and remember every order.. If I jump in to help,.. I slow things down as they have to cover for me and remind me on what orders I need to fill. so I work the crowd in the lobby, welcome people, chat with people and handle anything that might break down or change out the soda.

The hour before the movie, we have six people working if we are fully staffed.. Once the movie gets started the teens split the tips and go home till the next showing. They can make great tips.. Per hour bases, they make more money then I do. I have seen them each take home $30.00 in tips for an hour of work... but they earn it. We could not do what we do without them.

[Barry Floyd]

We are a twin screen drive-in theatre, about 35 miles east of Nashville. Staffing here varies by season. In the Spring and Fall when we operate just weekends only, we'll have one in the boxoffice, 3 upfront on the concessions line, 2 in the kitchen, and one in the lot on Fridays and Sundays. Saturdays in the Spring and Fall, its 4 up front, one in the boxoffice, 3 in the kitchen, 2 in the lot, and I float wherever needed.

In the summer when we're 7 nights a week, Friday and Saturdays its 2 in the boxoffice, 5 up front on the concessions line, 4 cooks in the kitchen, 4 parking attendants outside, and two more employees in the satellite concessions trailer, and my wife and I float wherever necessary. Sundays in the summer is 3 up front, 2 in the kitchen, 1 in the box, and one outside.

Week nights in the summer, its one in the boxoffice, 3 up front on concessions, 2 in the kitchen, 1 outside on the lot, and either me or my wife managing or doing whatever is needed.

Friday and Saturday this past weekend we had about 1,800 guests that all showed up within a 2 hour window. Week nights are much slower with about 150 - 175 guests typically each night.
Payroll I printed off last Thursday night showed 431.33 labor hours for the week.

[Jon Dent]

We're a twin screen and staffing is highly dependent on traffic. For 4:00 weekday matinees there's usually one worker. A second (and sometimes third) comes in at 6:00 to help clean and get the theaters ready for the 7:00. Then after the 7:00 rush the 4:00 opener and any extra people leave, with only a single employee remaining to clean the theaters afterwards and shut down. Sometimes other staff will randomly show up at 9:00 to help the closer and pick up some extra pay. Weekends we have four on staff for all Saturday showings and two or three on Sundays (sometimes four if it's Top Gun). I live about three miles from the theater so if anything breaks I usually run over there.

Seems to work pretty well for the most part. Sometimes there's some kids standing around during shifts but it's better than two kids getting slammed by 160 people in twenty minutes. We have good longevity with our staff too. We don't have the highest pay in town but I give them a lot of autonomy and flexibility in their scheduling, and they seem to like that. As long as it gets done right in a reasonable time frame I'm good.

We don't have ticketing separate from concessions. It's all in one and the aromatic munchies are four feet in front of their faces while they pick their seats.

[Armand Daiguillon]

Ticket booths are a thing of the past.
Sell tickets at concession and if your pos supports it, have one kiosk available for those who want to skip the line and buy/pickup tickets only.
Your concession revenue will go up since they dont have to wait in two lines.
If its busy, your are better off just adding another sell everything station rather than adding a ticket seller back.

[Dan Allen]

We're a non-profit 444 seat theatre that happens to have a Cinema Series, but there are only three of us here - our Executive Director house manages most all the shows, the Box Office/Business Manager takes care of tickets, and I handle all things lights, sound, and projection. I also started booking our films when we reopened after the Covid closing. Our ticket booth is inside the theatre, so before any show our Box Office Manager moves to a table out in the lobby to sell tickets. We have several volunteer ushers - for movies there's usually only one or two of them here, more for live events. We have a concessions room that's only open during events with intermissions (especially the longer Live at the Met breaks) but not for movies as there's no food or drink allowed in the theatre - it's a historic building, and our board has always frowned at the idea.

Being a small theatre in a small town, most of our crowd knows each other and us, it's actually one of the nice things about being here - watching the crowd milling about and catching up with each other before the show starts.

[James Wyrembelski]

People generally seem to like working here. Most of the teens will stay on until a week or so before they leave for college. And a good share of them will volunteer to be on our call list, so if they're home from college for a weekend they can take a shift if somebody wants a night off. I always joke that nobody ever has a "last day of work" here because you never know when you'll get called back to work. A couple of years ago, a girl who worked here in the 80s watched the place for me one night when my wife and I had to be somewhere else.

It's the same here. After we shut down in 2020 I lost only 2 people and that's mainly because they graduated and went off to college. One girl that works here was in college at that time and graduated during the covid era and even got hired in at a neighboring school as a teacher. She still works here every now and then just for the fun of it. The other is our "occasional" manager. We have one of those too!

During 2021 business was so slow that it was pretty much just me and my mom working every day. Although we were only open Thurs thru Sunday. I added Wednesday back and rehired another person that used to be on our staff. I just hired another and have my 3 regulars that fill in spots here and there. I "schedule" shifts for the entire month and let everyone fill in what they want to work and let them work it out amongst themselves. Hasn't failed so far and everyone really likes having a plan that far in advance.

After being here for every single show since reopening in March of last year....I'm ready for a break....but now we're back to pre covd business again....aye!

[Mike Blakesley]

I "schedule" shifts for the entire month and let everyone fill in what they want to work and let them work it out amongst themselves.

I've thought about doing that but haven't tried it. Right now we have a full crew of people that are all basically interchangeable -- they all do a good job, but we're about to lose 3 of them to college, so we'll have 3 newbies. I like to try to schedule the less experienced people with more seasoned ones when possible. Might be worth talking it over with the crew and see if they'd like to try it for a bit to see how well it works. I think they'd be smart enough to know not to put two brand-new people together on an opening night, for example.

[James Wyrembelski]

I'd give it a shot. Saves me a lot of headache. However I do give final judgement on it. If they're new I'd definitely try to get a regular employee alongside of them.

It does work out for everyone though. Knowing your schedule way in advance allows everyone to work around plans.