The Exhibitor (1956)

18 MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR taking care of any condition that might arise. Concession sales bring in a fine extra profit at the extra morning shows, also. This is, of course, no new idea. How¬ ever, the longer program at merchant sponsored shows and the baby sitting title are new, and it was easy to sell our mer¬ chants. This is a small town of 8,000 population with income from agriculture, with some small manufacturing plants and some oil industry, RUNNER-UP NUMBER 3 DRIVE-IN STUNTS Submitted by Robert B. Tuttle Lenawee Auto Drive-In, Adrian, Mich. 525 cars • $1.00 per car General patronage. We believe that while grosses on indi¬ vidual pictures are terrifically necessary to the successful operation of any the¬ atre, it is the day-to-day efforts on the behalf of all pictures in the interests of the goodwill of patrons that insure steady weekly grosses. To support such a policy, we insti¬ tuted the following promotions: we in¬ stituted a “gimmick” corner in our ad¬ vertising, in which we support the cur¬ rent “gimmick” to attract attention, such as (a) Bumper signs of the day-glo type were given away, featuring the fact that their attachment to the car bumper admit the driver free on certain nights of the week; (b) Buck Nights — all the car could hold for the maximum charge of $1 on specified nights. Other gimmicks used were that all cars in line at the boxoffice each night for one show change would receive one ticket free with each one purchased. We featured a triple all-color Indian show for a Saturday night and offered a reward for all “arrows found at the base of the screen tower” as a joke. We actually had some arrows turned in by “jokers” in the crowd. The local high school agreed to permit two clubs in school to put on a teen-age talent show on the roof of our concession building in connection with a cartoon festival and we gave them 50 per cent of all advance sales tickets. We garnered about three times normal grosses and won a terrific amount of good will from the kids. In connection with the local all-county band festival, we offered a free show to all the band members. The band directors were very friendly over the deal, as were the youngsters, and just from the way they acted in the drive-in, we know that many of the parents had never been either at our spot or any drive-in before. MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR — AWARDS — *100°° Per Week TO THE WINNER OF SHOWMANSHIP SWEEPSTAKES YOU, TOO, CAN COLLECT! SEND YOUR ENTRY IN NOW! We negotiated with the local Chevrolet dealer and arranged for three Kiddie Corvetters, using his window for display, and arranging for use of the back of our programs as “chances” toward the giving away of the Corvettes. We gave out penny suckers at the boxoffice to all youngsters; held contests for the kids before the show started; and found the engagement of live hillbilly bands a draw. For “I’ll Cry Tomorrow” we used a “crying towel” gag which gave our patrons quite a bang — and helped publi¬ cize the attraction nicely. We also profitably sold sponsorship of our “nightly short subject added attrac¬ tions,” shown between feature attrac¬ tions, to a local Federal Savings and Loan Company. Their advertising on the screen more than paid for these subjects. mnmR~UP WUMBEt 4 I m SOME EXTRA PROFITS7 SHOWMANSHIP Submitted by Michael King Nortown, Toronto, Canada 959 seats • $1.00 top admission General patronage. It isn’t often that an enterprising man¬ ager comes up with some excellent show¬ manship in the extra profits’ department. It is rare indeed when a fellow not only does that, but also comes through with a group of ideas along these lines shaped into an entry in SHOWMANSHIP SWEEPSTAKES. During his showing of “That Certain Feeling,” this manager, through an arrangement with Langley Harris, distrib¬ utor of Bassett’s, had his confection at¬ tendants wear special smocks and dis¬ tributed some 1,000 imprinted sample envelopes each with two or three pieces of licorice, to patrons. The copy on the envelopes read: “Bassett’s All-Sorts for ‘That Certain (well-fed) Feeling’.” The¬ atre name. The confection bar was decorated especially on this occasion with signs reading: “This is it. That cer¬ tain candy to enjoy while watching ‘That Certain Feeling,’ etc.” This display was up for a week preceding playdate and during playdate. At various times throughout the year, the theatre gives away little prizes with each box of popcorn. After each give¬ away we always have a small quantity of each item left, not sufficient to give out again on their own. Using an old trick, we put all these leftovers on dis¬ play and invited the children to help themselves to a prize for each empty Pox they brought back to the stand. This sold an enormous amount of popcorn for us; and aside from the fun the kids had, we had a little less mess to cleanup at the end of the afternoon. A local tailors were opening a boys de¬ partment and to gain publicity for it they donated a bicycle giveaway at the theatre by lucky drawing by ballot. This deal didn’t cost us a penny. The tailoring establishment gave us 600 balloons in addition to give to the children. We promptly used them as popcorn prizes. And they also gave us a copy of the mailing list they compiled. Good Movie Page Aids All Retailers-COMPO New York — Urging editorial support of recently organized national campaigns to persuade people to seek recreation and entertainment outside their homes, the 70th in the series of COMPO ads in Editor and Publisher, says that one way news¬ papers can help is by publishing more news and comment about the attractions at local movie theatres. A good, live amusement page, it asserts will help all retail businesses, including newspapers. “A nationally known food company,” the ad says, “announces that it will soon start a newspaper advertising campaign aimed at persuading people to go out of their homes and dine in restaurants. The campaign, it is explained, will be con¬ ducted in cooperation with a similar effort by the National Restaurant Asso¬ ciation. “These endeavors, it seems to us, point up a situation that should be of deep concern to newspaper publishers. For if people stay home nights and never seek recreation outside their homes, all retail trade must suffer. This can only reflect adversely on the effectiveness of news¬ paper advertising. “There is, moreover, another result from this situation which should be considered. This is the lessening of a community’s at¬ tractiveness that must result from a fur¬ ther reduction of pedestrian traffic. Be¬ cause of automobiles the pedestrian today is a rarity in many streets. If, in addi¬ tion to refusing to walk, people get into the habit of staying home altogether at night, our communities, especially after dark, may take on the gloom of ghost towns. “We in the motion picture industry, of course, don’t like this. We want people to come out of their homes and attend our theatres. For that reason we believe newspapers should try to persuade people to go out for their recreation. “One way newspapers can help is by publishing more news and comment about the attractions at local movie theatres. This suggestion is not entirely selfish. Newspaper readers like to read about movies and movie personalities, so the papers themselves would benefit. Fur¬ thermore, if people go out to the movies they will be more likely to patronize other retailers.” Phone Stunt Aids "Doll" Bow New York — Any movie-goer who dialed Circle 6-1077 last week spoke personally to Shelley Winters, Eli Wallach, or Ben Gazzara. The three stars, all members of , the Actors’ Studio, carried on a telephone campaign to sell tickets to the Studio’s bala benefit premiere of Elia Kazan’s “Baby Doll” held at the Victoria yes¬ terday (Dec. 18). The tickets, priced at $50 each, admit purchasers to the premiere, at which all seats are reserved, and to the supper dance immediately following at the Waldorf-Astoria. O'Donnell On Milk Bowl Board Bryan, Tex. — Robert J. O’Donnell, vicepresident and general manager, Interstate Circuit, Dallas, has been appointed to the board of directors of The National Milk Bowl, famed Bowl for “Little” football. December 19, 1956