Ballyhoo (Oct 1960)

Page scan 0003 from Ballyhoo

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
Oct 1960
Volume:
Time Out for Ticket Talk (Oct 1960, no date)
Leaf #:
0003
Language:
English
Collection:
Canada, Global Cinema, and Hollywood Studio System
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Greig Dymond in memory of David Dymond, Paul Moore and Jessica Whitehead
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:

Ballyhoo

  • Ontario 'B' District Ballyhoo, editor: Dan Krendel (1952-55)
  • Profit Blitz for ‘Fitz’, editor: Dan Krendel (1955)
  • National Ballyhoo, editor: Dan Krendel (1956-57)
  • Time Out for Ticket Talk, editor: Norman Barker (1960-61)

Ballyhoo (1952-61) was published by Famous Players Canadian Corporation as a mimeographed internal sales and theatre managers’ newsletter. Editor, Dan Krendel, had been division manager of the Ontario ‘B’ District since 1942, and initially created Ballyhoo in 1952 to circulate weekly updates for a regional sales contest. Ontario ‘B’ District Ballyhoo continued until 1955 as a tool for sharing and incentivizing new sales techniques and publicity methods as the movie business declined in the face of television and the baby boom.

In Fall 1955, Profit Blitz for ‘Fitz’ was a nationwide sales contest, named for Famous Players’ president J. J. Fitzgibbons, honouring his 25th year as head of the business. Dan Krendel was made National Drive Captain and edited a weekly newsletter for the campaign.

From 1956 until at least 1957, National Ballyhoo was published weekly with Krendel as editor. He continued the style and content developed earlier for his Ontario ‘B’ District, but now extended vastly for a chain-wide coast to coast scale. Ballyhoo’s sharing promotional tools came at a time of contracting box office as television and automobile ownership became prevalent in the mid-1950s.

By 1960 until at least 1961, Time Out for Ticket Talk continued as a mimeographed newsletter, edited by Norman Barker of the head office publicity department. Time Out was compiled on a less ambitious scale than Ballyhoo. Compared to the earlier national compilation of local publicity gimmicks, Time Out often contained only a single memo or reproduced local story, and was often undated and only informally edited.

– Paul Moore, March 2024

Date Added:
April 11, 2024
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~ 3 beginning the end of January and lasting for ten weeks. I cut newspaper and other advertising expenditures in half and this time wound up with over $400.00 clear profit on the rental alone, plus my candy sales had increased this time to almost $1,600.00 on the ten weeks. This gave me a net operating profit of around $1,100.00 including candy profits, which is $1,100.00 more than I would have had if I had not ran the A.M. shows. Now I was nearing the summer season and when I received my July bookings, I was very concerned to note that only one of the attractions booked had appeal to the children. I checked with Pat, my booker, who has never let me down yet, and was advised that during August I had three big children's attractions. This was fine but it did not solve the problem of how to get the kids into my house during July. I had just finished running a "Walt Disney Presents":.A.M. show and although I had made a small profit on this single Saturday A.M. show, to which I charged admission ($50.00 at the box office am approximately $50.00 profit from $150.00 on candy sales), I had to run two shows starting at 9:30 A.M. and it was only on acccunt of the stragglers coming in all morning and the weather being cool and cloudy that I made a profit, Personally, this type of A.M. show was too risky for me and I had become fat from such good profits on my guaranteed rentals and tremendous candy bar sales that I felt I would leave this type of a promotion to later in the fall. The warm weather was here now. I had just finished a fairly successful paid admission "Walt Disney Presents" show, which had very high candy sales and now I was thinking of what to do to help July business. I struck on the idea, which my wife unknowingly gave to me, of arranging a series of Friday