Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1963)

The Vieu> frw OuUide by ROLAND PENDARIS Disneyland Showmanship There are all kinds of show business and the various branches don't necessarily have much in common; but occasionally it is a good idea for one type of show business to look at another and get a new prospective on the entertainment industry. Right now I think the movie branch might take a look at one of its own byproducts — Disneyland — and pick up a few pointers. Amusement parks, like movies and movie theatres, come in all shapes and sizes, and when they are bad they are awful. When they are good they are interesting. When they are Disneyland, they must command every showman's attention. Many of the sales assignments faced by Disneyland compare closely with those of the theatre operator. There is a traffic — customer traffic, that is — problem and an impulse buying challenge and an image-building need, for example, at the local Bijou as well as in Anaheim, California, where Mr. Disney set up his establishment. < ► Let's consider this question of customer traffic. At Disneyland, as in any business establishment, the important thing is to keep the customers moving toward the cash registers. Time spent in hiking from a mammoth parking lot at Disneyland or waiting in line for a ride is time when the customer is not reaching into his pocket. The solution is to get him out of the parking lot as quickly as possible and up to the ticket window. Then, when he has bought his ticket for a ride, get him on and off that ride without undue delay so that he can move on to the next point of purchase. So far it sounds very simple — and showmen less sophisticated than Disney make the fatal mistake of thinking it is simple. For instance, they figure they will speed up customer traffic by making the rides shorter. This is apt to anger or at least to disillusion ticket buyers. Disney knows a better way. First, he runs tractor trains steadily from the parking lots to the ticket windows. He charges a nominal 250 parking fee for your car, but no charge at all for the tractor train. And there is a gracious spiel aboard the conveyance as you ride tow ard the box office. You can't help feeling that this is a gracious kind of operation — only a real cynic stops to think that Mr. Disney has gotten you to the point of purchase ten minutes sooner than if you had w alked. You start your visit to Disneyland happy and already convinced that you are not in a nest of thieves. And w hen vou reach the box office you find that there are so many ticket windows open you have practically no wait for attention. Another plus for the favorable impact of your arrival at Disneyland. ■< ► Let's draw the analogy with the motion picture theatre right here. First as to the parking. No theatre parking facilities are as huge as those of Disneyland; no need, therefore, to run a tractor train. But why not — as the drive-ins have done — provide special ticket windows for the four-wall moviegoers, right at the parking lot, with no need for them to walk all the way around the theatre and stand in one single line to buy their tickets? Why not little efficiencies like clearly numbered markers so the parker can remember where his car is parked — or an attendant to give him the information? And now to the boxoffice. Go to your local supermarket. Look at its check-out counters — or go to the Radio City Musical Hall and look at its box offices. Please note the plurals. Neither Music Hall nor supermarket operates with one cash register. But lots of movie theatres still do. Aha, says the operator of a small neighborhood house, he isn't talking about me. The only time I have a line at the box office is Saturday evening, and everybody has a line then. I am talking about him. If he has a long line every Saturday evening, he should have one or two extra box offices on Saturday evening. Yes, he says, but the customers just have to stand and wait for seats in the lobby anyway. (Let me express the hope every showman has this kind of problem. I can only say that I'd rather have customers waiting in the lobby, and leaving more customers buying tickets at the box office, than to have a long ticket line discourage latecomers. ► So far we have used Disneyland only as far as the ticket windows. The comparison with the motion picture theatre goes further. Once you get inside Disneyland, you find an ingenious mixture of free and price-tagged attractions. (Nothing is really free, since you have paid to get in; what I term free are those attractions for which no further admission is charged and which therefore seem to be free). They are laid out in such a way that if you find a big crowd in front of one attraction you can always kill time pleasantly in another. How does this compare with the movie business? If there's a line waiting for seats at the movie theatre, you w ait. In some theatres there is a lounge where you can get a cup of coffee free; in others there is a refreshment counter or a soda or candy machine. But in most instances you lose your place in line if you retreat to the coffee lounge. Some theatres don't have much space for stand-by attractions, I concede. One such theatre that I know sends a coffee girl out into the street to serve complimentary java to the customers w aiting in line. It's a small gesture, but it brings a tremendous amount of good will — and it makes the wait seem shorter. Taking a leaf from Disney, why can't a theatre have a number of time-killing attractions till the next show starts? Oldtime movies on rearview projectors, for example, or television, or complimentary tic-tac-toe pads or silent bingo games or what-not. (If readers are interested I'd be glad to do a column of specific suggestions.) We come now to what I think is another prime clue to the success of Disneyland. It is what I call the illusion of choice. Disney has souvenir stands of every kind in every part of his park. No two look alike. You wander into three or four, each with a couple of distinctive items, and then you realize that basically all are carrying the same wares. But you have so many different-looking opportunities to buy a souvenir that you are bound to succumb somewhere along the line. Yet at the movie theatre there is apt to be only one candy counter, one soda machine, etc. Wouldn't it be good to have more variety of sales opportunity and sales location for this by-product activity? Some may say that Disney can accomplish the commercial miracle of Disneyland because his customers are all prepared to spend money and he is far from urban slums, racial unrest and other civic blights. But the Radio City Music Hall is smack in the downtown middle of Manhattan Island, where the slums, the unrest and other civic blights, including the litterbug, are endemic. It takes two to tango — and the cusomer is only one of them. Pago 8 Film BULLETIN September 2, 1963