90 cinemas close = 900 est. projectors/players/sound hit the second hand market?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Pacific Theaters moved all equipment to one place and held a big auction a couple years ago. This could also be what's going on here. A lot of Pacific's stuff was series 1.

[James Gardiner]

Yes, I can see this large amount of equipment becoming available turbo charging green-field openings.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Regal was in the middle of converting all their locations to Laser Projection before COVID set in. So they may be moving those projectors and related gear to other more viable locations...

[John Eickhof]

a lot of the larger circuits used equipment leasing companies (often owned by the circuit) for these larger capitol expenses like digital conversion, thus the primary capitol equipment would be returned to the lease company often then being sold at $.10 on the dollar back to the circuit then the tax write offs would begin....and the circuit avoided bankruptcy yet basically retained all the expensive equipment! welcome to the corporate world! and you wonder why this stuff is so expensive!

[Martin McCaffery]

Pretty sure for AMC that most of it goes into a warehouse to be cannibalized by their surviving screens..

[Mike Blakesley]

Most of it probably goes back to the manufacturer.

Really? Why would a manufacturer want it back, unless it was something fairly new...?

[Jim Cassedy]

My experience with getting up abandoned locations is that the previous owners
typically destroy the location as much as possible to make it as hard as possible
to open up

I saw a lot of 35mm equipment getting deliberately destroyed by installers during the "digital cinema revolution"
a decade ago. As for abandoned theaters, I've seen things go both ways- - sometimes the equipment is just
left in place, and sometimes, if the owner thinks it's worth it, it's removed and sent to a warehouse for storage
or spare parts, or sold at auction. I think it's all a matter of money for the owners. For some, they might preceive
it as better, tax-wise, just to junk everything and write it off.

Over a decade ago, I worked in an 8 story building that was being abandoned by "the phone company'. My
department was the last to go, due to the technical complexity of moving us to another location. So for two
or three years, we were the ONLY tenants left in the building. Every once and awhile I'd go on a scavanger
hunt on one of the upper floors. There was still a good stash of office supplies and electronic equipment that
had been abandoned. (Or "RIP"d- 'Retired In Place'- as the telco called it) One day, after not having been
upstairs for a couple of weeks, I went up and discovered that all the the toilets and sinks, and water fountains
had been smashed and/or pulled off the walls, and that many wires had been cut in the circuit breaker panels,
leaving only the EXIT signs and emergency lights working. There were also big holes smashed in some of the
internal office walls. At first I thought vandals had broken in and trashed everything, but I later learned that all
this was done deliberately, "for tax reasons". Apparently, by making some of the floors "uninhabitable" the
building owners were either not taxed, or taxed at a lower rate, for the square footage of the unusable floors.

[Jon Dent]

Our owner is currently looking into a closed AMC for purchase. They stripped out everything important when it closed down: projectors, servers, even the damn popcorn machine. When it comes to major chain theaters, I don't think any of that that stuff hits the secondary market. Most of it probably goes back to the manufacturer.

[James Gardiner]

Hi all,
I just wanted to get your opinion on this news.
https://celluloidjunkie.com/2023/01/...tre-locations/

but in general, it estimates 90 locations close, and if you average 10 screens per location, let's say 900 Digital Cinema systems, well used, hitting the market.
How is this affecting the industry from a technical support angle? (As most readers here are support-capable agents).
Do most of this 900 screen equipment go to landfill? is there a warehouse just full of this stuff for 5+ years filling latent demand in green field areas. And will it work if the Security Manager (SM needing battery upkeep) in the DCI kit is not well maintained.

Another interesting aspect. And from my experience is what happens to all these abandoned locations.
Leaving kit behind etc.
My experience with getting up abandoned locations is that the previous owners typically destroy the location as much as possible to make it as hard as possible to open up again.
For example, any equipment left was purposefully damaged beyond repair. All cabling, even some power cables, are cut to ensure the site needs to be completely re-cabled for nearly everything. (Typically apart from power as that would be clear negligence and they could be re-percussion)

These events do have effects flowing down into other aspects of the industry.