Exhibitor's Trade Review (May-Aug 1925)

May 30, 1925 Page 41 SOME ARE SUMMER and SOME WHAT sort of shows will you show in the summer time ? Upon the answer depends much of your hot weather success. It is very particularly up to you, therefore, to use good hot weather judgment in the selection of your programs for that season. In the first place use as many comedies as you can. If your seats are made cool and comfortable with proper coverings, and the picture projected on your screen is one that will make the patron forget the fact that his collar is melted by causing him to smile, you have made a friend for the theatre. Avoid Heavy Stuff Avoid tragedy and heavy drama. It may be absorbing enough during the cold weather. But on a "balmy summer evening" it will prove too deep, and be more liable to irritate than to please. The best bets for warm weather are the fluffiest sort of comedies and farces. Anything with a good laugh will help summer business. Features vs. Shorts Another point that merits your consideration is the fact that lengthy features are less acceptable in summer than during the cooler periods. They are liable to prove irksome and draggy, and give your patrons a chance to think more of the heat than of the picture. If there is ever an opportune time to try special all comedy, all short, bills, it is during the summer months. In other words, if you ever are going to put on a really highly deversified program do so during the warm season. Prologs A prolog need not be an expensive or elaborate thing. For instance, a graceful dancer, or a song program will do the trick just as well as a prolog running into hundreds of dollars. Just as a suggestion for a summer show prolog that can be used with any sort of program, consider one that a number of exhibitors have proven to be an efficient business builder. This is nothing more difficult than a good singer rendering all the favorite songs of summer times that have now passed. For instance, such numbers as "The Good Old Summer Time," "In the SHOWSare NOT! Shade of the Old Apple Tree," "My Wife's Gone to the Country," and other songs of other years, will bring happy memories to many in the house, and before you know it a song leader who can get his personality across the footlights will have the crowd singing with him, and thanking goodness it is summer time instead of winter. Presentation As far as you possible can, dress your stage and your theatre in such a manner as to bring a breath of the outdoors to the playhouse. If you use prologs, have the stage bowered in roses, or apple blossoms. Have your people garbed so that they appear cool. Use boxes of real flowers in the lobby and in the theatre. Several of the largest theatres in the country, especially one of the new ones SUMMER Is the time to call out the Showmanship reserves. Just keep on trying to fill every seat for every show, and you will find it can be done. Others have done it year after year. There isn't a single good reason why you cannot. In every issue of Exhibitors Trade Review you will find a resume of the ideas with which your brother exhibitors have knocked the heat cold. Send in word about what you are doing in the way of hot weather SHOWMANSHIP in Chicago, have taken the idea of making the theatre interior a huge garden. Even the ceiling is a "sky" with twinking stars. There is an abundance of leaves and flowers, and on the side walls are many mechanical singingbirds in willow cases. Why could this idea not be carried out on a smaller scale ? The "sky" would not be hard to make, and a few real birds would be even better than the artificial songsters. Service Service is one of the items that is always important, but assumes even greater aspects in the summer than at any other time. Arrange with any of the merchants in your town to supply fans carrying their advertising and see Keep Cool in Hot Weather is the motto of Patsy Ruth Miller, the Warner Brothers star, and it may well be adopted as a slogan by motion picture showmen. Keep cool yourself, and keep your patrons cool, and this summer's business will enable you to spend the winters in Florida. to it that every one enterirrg your theatre is provided with a fan. Also, don't overlook the proposition of having plenty of ice in the water coolers. If possible arrange to have a boy carry trays of iced water through the aisles during the show. It will not attract any great amount of attention from the show and it will further help your patrons to keep cool. Keep the washrooms well ventilated and clean. Keep the theatre in spic and span condition, and don't overlook an opportunity to throw it wide open in order to get sweet, fresh air passing through. Of course you will use fans. Keep the air circulating, but arrange the fans at an angle that will preclude drafts being blown on the necks of patrons. After all, it is as easy to catch cold in the summer time as any other old time. Greater Movie Season This summer there will be a determined, concentrated drive made to build business during the summer months. It is going to help you to make this warm weather season more profitable than any you have had. Take advantage of this opportunity. Put your shoulder to the wheel, also, and help yourself to accomplish what others are aiding in doing. Use every ounce of showmanship you possess in figuring out ways and means to make your theatre even more attractive in the summer time than it is during any other season. And watch Exhibitors Trade Review each week for brand new ideas that may be used in putting a "sum" of big box-office receipts in summer time business.