Building theatre patronage : management and merchandising (1927)

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION FIFTEEN years ago an experienced old showman said: "There are only three things to know about running a theatre — how to get 'em in — how to get 'em out — and how to get 'em back again!" To get them in the first time is easy. To get them out is easy. It's getting them back again that's not so easy. When the old showman was asked what there was to know about getting them back again, he answered: "A bookful!" This was true fifteen years ago. It is just as true today. The truth has wider application than ever, for now there are about fifteen thousand theatres in the United States in which motion pictures are shown. Every week at these theatres forty-five million admissions are averaged. And yet no theatre is playing to capacity with every seat occupied at every performance. Only a relatively small percentage of the vast potential patronage for motion picture theatres has been secured. More people would attend motion picture theatres and attend them oftener. On what does this increase of motion picture theatre patronage depend? It depends in good part upon improvement in theatre operation, because theatre managers are in direct contact with the public. The usual excuse given for unsatisfactory patronage is that the photoplays available are inferior. This excuse is weak. If so, why then does the very same program shown in two different theatres attract a small audience at one, and a large audience at the other? For the simple reason that in one case the program was effectively merchandised, and in the other, it was not. In one case, improved methods of theatre operation prevailed, while in the other, the operation was defective. How unfair it is to attribute unsatisfactory patronage entirely to the program is proved by another comparison. Two 1