[jonners00]

A couple of years ago Odeon turned our nearest theatre into a 'luxe' theatre (adult tickets £20), and the next nearest theatre was left as it was, but all tickets £5 each (tickets at both theatres where about £14 previously). I think it was an experiment to see which model was most economic: major investment in tech and comfort/£100+ for a family of four to watch a film with snacks and beverages/fewer tickets sold as a result OR minimal capex/far more affordable to attend/loads more tickets sold. The £5 tickets for all showings have stopped, but you can still get them a lot of the time (they have surge pricing for blockbuster releases,and some upgraded premium seating now). I think they've found a way to be affordable to the masses and fill seats, but still extract max revenue from better off families, by having half their theatres follow one model and half follow the other.

[vlovich123]

For all tickets is similarly insane. It needs to be demand driven - sold out show? Prices too low. Can’t get butts in seats? prices too high.

You want prices set such that it’s almost but not quite at capacity. This gives you slack to accept stragglers while optimizing your profit on the price demand curve.

[bombcar]

The problem is that if you take this too far, nobody knows what it costs to go to the movies, so everyone will just stick the "high cost" in their mind, and not go.

This is why they always gravitate to "$5 before noon/4pm" or "$5 Tuesdays" or similar things that are easy to remember.

I'm waiting for them to have the best seats in the house be the large armchairs for $20, and the rest of the shitseats be normal stadium seating for $5.

[vlovich123]

Make it app driven to simplify like Uber does. And it should be closer to how large theatrical shows are - fridays at peak time most expensive, different seats have different pricing etc. anyway, movie theaters hit a local optimum decades ago and the people running them failed to evolve.

[zem]

that is psychologically a really bad customer experience; no one wants to feel like they are being "value extracted" to the greatest extent the company can get away with. airlines do this sort of continuously varying pricing and people hate it, but they don't have much choice in the matter. if that sort of negative perception gets attached to going to the movies the public simply won't.