The Exhibitor (1959)

‘Tree Dishes Tonight!” Not too many years ago, theatres all across the land featured such an announcement on their marquees and attracted crowds of appreciative female cus¬ tomers to mid-week shows as a result. The premium business was very much a part of showmanship. Originally, theatre premiums were an outright gift to ladies only of a towel, dish, piece of flatware, or some similar item. As prices of everything skyrocketed, the price of premiums went with them, so that it was necessary to charge patrons a companion fee of five or 10 cents to offset added costs. Another method was to consider any dinner plate or other big piece as two pieces (i.e. a coupon given one week and surrendered the next in order to get the plate). Both of these methods served to slow up the volume of interest and cut down the advantages of premiums. Also, for many years, women received every imaginable premium, rendering the whole operation common¬ place. Theatre premiums lost favor— with both patrons and theatremen. Good ideas in showmanship, like old soldiers, never die, however. They fade away until such a time as they appear in a shiny new guise to inject new life into the industry and to provide new patrons for too often empty theatre seats. The theatre operator is in show business, and that is synonymous with ballyhoo. While nothing will ever re¬ place good pictures as at¬ tention-getters for the theatre, the operator that can offer his patrons something worth¬ while as an extra inducement is that much ahead. In the intervening years, theatre admission prices have risen mightily. Taxes once re¬ pealed were not refunded to the patron but were necessary to exhibition’s survival. Many suburban neighborhood, and rural or small town theatres now command a 65 to 90 cent adult admission. But few pa¬ trons pay it on midweek A.P. remutmS A New Effort in Theatre Premiums Shows Some Power as a Stimulant to Mid-Week Attendance. A SPOTLIGHT SURVEY Exclusively in .. . MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR nights. Seaboard Premiums Inc. think they have the answer. Seaboard has revived the “Dish Night” program for theatres in the eastern area via an approach that has been completely changed from any methods used in the past. It’s a modernized program, to be sure, but the objective is as old as the nation’s first theatre, TO SELL TICKETS. Seaboard personnel come to the theatre and run a poll of patron interest in different giveaway programs. The company sends about 10 different patterns of dinnerware, two patterns of stainless steel, and two or three patterns of glassware to the theatre. Each item is numbered, and an impartial poll is con¬ ducted. Every woman coming into the theatre is approached in the lobby, asked to inspect the attractive display, and to give her preference as to which item she would prefer to col¬ lect as a regular theatre patron on Monday, Tuesday, or Wed¬ nesday night. Experience shows that the ladies are not at all reluctant to make their views known, with the result that the program is launched to considerable public interest. This voting method, Seaboard reports, is practically a guarantee of success for the giveaway program because the neighborhood, by majority, has selected its own preference with specific reference to color, pattern, and design. The balloting usually results in a combination of two items being selected for the giveaway, representing the first and second choices of the theatre’s patrons. When this is ac¬ complished, Seaboard installs a handsome lobby showcase finished in glittering black and gold and decorated with com¬ plete sets of dinnerware, glassware, or stainless steel as selected in the poll. Trailers are supplied to the theatre advising patrons of the coming giveaway program and inviting women to a free show one week prior to the actual beginning of the giveaway. At the free show, refreshments are served and every woman entering the theatre is given a duplicate stub which entitles her to the opportunity for a free drawing of a complete dinnerware, glassware, or stainless steel set, service for six. Seaboard reports instantaneous success with these giveaway programs and mid-week attendance boosts from 100 to 500 per cent. Endorsements from exhibitors using the service seem to bear these figures out. Edward L. Fabian, Fabian Theatres, New York, cites a decided increase in mid-week attendance at theatres participat¬ ing in the premium program. On premium nights, he reports, 60 MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR December 23, 1959