Moving Picture World (Nov-Dec 1927)

December io, 1927 65 Lay Off and Lose Out Don't let cash walk out of box office by sparing accessories if you intend to stay in business LET us look at this accessory problem . from the exhibitors’ viewpoint. We will suppose that some chap who runs a small house believes he cannot afford to pay for accessories. He decides :o do without them for a while. His receipts keep along at the same level for a few weeks and then comes a slump. What joes he do? He goes right back to advertising accessories to ^et back his patronage. Or another instance — The owner of the only theatre in :own uses as little advertising as he feels is necessary to keep folks coming to his house. Then somebody opens another :heatre in the same town or in some nearby place. The first man’s receipts drop. What does that fellow do? Increases lis advertising accessories to bring folks to his house.. Advertising is essential Every showman knows that advertising is necessary to lis business — is the very life of the show business, in fact. Not to advertise is to cease advancing. And there is no business on earth that can go on very long if it does not advance. Then what about accessories? It is an acknowledged fact :hat pictorial advertising, particularly colored pictorial ma:erial, is more valuable to the advertiser than plain black and white. The exhibitor who uses accessories gets his colored lictorial advertising at a lower rate than if he were to have :he same material printed for him individually. THE question then remains — how much advertising can each exhibitor profitably use. It is possible that he is rsing the limit, but nobody can ever know the limit of possibilities until he experiments. A theatre owner may do that without financial loss by increasing his use of accessories 25% for a few weeks and watching the result. If attendance in:reases enough to warrant the increase he has gained somehing. If not, his additional expenditure is not excessive. Such ixperimenting should work the changes on each possible ac:essory, until the one which yields the greatest return is mown. Then that medium should be emphasized. Make Heralds W ork Here is another point. Heralds are far more effective when iistributed from house to house than when given out only in he theatre. Where a mailing list is not feasible a boy on a >icycle may serve. Of course, a great deal depends on local conditions. If necessary, consult some official at your bank libout the best way to get a good mailing list. The more re:eipts you bring to the bank the better they like it. This nethod has been known to help. Some business managers of newspapers will' be glad to help heatres build up mailing lists. Heralds and other accessories supplement newspaper advertising, they do not displace it. <or that reason there should be no objection offered by news>aper folk when such assistance is asked. Another way to get a mailing list is to run a contest of some imple sort, which everybody will want to enter. For instance, ‘My Favorite Player,” limiting replies to 100 words. Anv nailing list which reaches only the usual patrons of the theatre s not thoroughly effective. It should go to people who will By IR FING MacD ONALD Manager, Fox Theatre, Springfield, Mass. bring additional receipts to the box office. MANY a window tie-up can be obtained inexpensively by using small cutouts made from the window cards. They make excellent hangers in the window and, for that matter, in the lobby or under the marques. Moreover, while they serve as attractors in a window, they are not so large as to detract from the merchandise. The window cards put out by Fox Films during the past few months are particularly adaptable for cutouts. Nor does that say that many of their larger accessories do not possess excellent showmanship value. To sum up — exhibitors must have advertising to stay in business. Accessories furnished by producers are more effective, and just as reasonable in price, as specially printed matter. The amount of accessories depends on individual conditions. And no man is sure that he is getting all the business that is coming to him unless he ascertains his advertising possibilities. To be satisfied with less than he can get is to let cash walk out of his box office. Rang the Golden Bell (Continued from page 64) stores select their locations. He wants the right corner of the right street, and he never gets on the wrong side of the street. More than one theatre has passed through many hands merely because some brash investor has sought to “pull ’em across” to the wron side of a one sided street. Mr. Proctor lets others do the pulling. Born in Dexter, Maine, of old Colonial stock, his father died when he was very young. About his only recreation was found in a nearby gymnasium, and he attained so great a proficiency on the bars and mats that he attracted the attention of an older man, a professional acrobat, who suggested a partnership. For a number of years he worked with various partners on the stage and in the circus ring, as bar performer and ground acrobat and later developed an equilibristic specialty which was good enough to obtain him an offer of engagements abroad; something more unusual than it is today. In 1889 he came to New York and opened the theatre in West Twenty-third street which still bears his name. In 1893 he changed to a continuous vaudeville policy, opening at 10 A. M. and closing at 11 P. M., a policy new to New York, and which was popularized by literally flooding the town with posters reading “After breakfast go to Proctor’s” and which was promptly emended by Nat Haines, a blackface comedian, to “After breakfast, go to Proctor’s. After Proctor’s go to bed.” Eater he built the Pleasure Palace at Third Avenue and Fiftyeight street, took over the old Hammerstein theatres, the Columbus and the Harlem Opera House, and leased the Fifth Avenue theatre ; once the home of the famous stars of their day. With this as a nucleus, he has extended his circuit to cover many cities, but always with the single basis of clean shows, clean houses and clean management.