Posted on 01/07/2006 12:04:06 PM PST by Ma3lst0rm
Buy 10, get one free would work. Of course, you'll have another card to keep up with.
I hate peopel trying to sell me stuff I don't want, but is it that biga deal to ask the customer if teye want nachos or a pizza? Just asking.
My brother was an usher at the local cinema while in High School (mid '70s). He said that a bucket of popcorn cost about $0.03, and sold for about $1.00-$1.50.
And I can pop my own popcorn, have a decent tasting soda (or adult beverage if I so choose) and not have to listen to all the snot-nosed kids or people on their cell phones with their feet up on the back of my chair. I just wind up with our dog on my lap (but I do have to share my popcorn in that case :) ).
Yeah I worked at a Pizza place and it cost about 50 cents to make a pie.
Once, it took my hubby and I, 5 nights to watch one movie. We'd pop it in at bedtime and almost before our heads hit the pillow we were out. The second night, we'd set it to where we fell asleep the night before and so on until we got to see it all.
Just a few observations :
I worked in a large 2 screen theatre in a large city
back 30 years ago. We opened 'God Father'in one 1100
seat autorium. Packed every night for nearly 6 weeks.
It was the first time to increase our tickets above
$ 3.00 to I believe $ 3.25 a ticket.
1. Theatres have a HUGH expense in cleanup. A private
crew of 8-12 worked from 1 am until somestimes 9 in the morning.
2.The trash removal company was a large expense. Truck
after truck to haul rubbish away.
3. The house size air/heating was breaking all the time.
It cost a fortuned. $ 7 to $15,000 a pop was nothing.
4. Only union projector/operators could be used and they were paid very, very well.
5. Advertising in local newspapers was very expensive.
6. We had a crew of 30 to 50 YOUNG kids to call on...with as many a 20 working per showing.
O yea...my take home pay was about $ 260.oo week. I was glad to get much.
I truly am shocked to hear this. My mother sold tickets at a small town movie during most of my childhood. I got to go to the movies AS OFTEN AS I WANTED FOR FREE. At age 14 I started working there in the concession stand and made minimum wage; but, had a blast. On Disney shows it was very hard work. The rest of the time is was easy and lots of fun. I was even able to do my homework there. It was the coolest job ever for a teenager. (I met my future husband there while he was an usher. Sometimes workplace romances are a good thing. LOL!)
That's not "voluntary". That's fraud and deceit.
I figured that out years ago. I don't show until 20 minutes after the start time.
It amazes me that people even bother buying concession food. I always have my wife fill her purse up with stuff whenever we go to the movies. You can buy snacks at Wal-Mart for about 1/5 the price they charge you in the theaters. And you can sneak a few nips in this way too! Just use the old Gatorade bottle trick.
You're a little mixed up. Capitalists believe a product is worth what buyers are willing to pay for it, regardless of its cost to the seller. It's communists to believe a product's value is determined by the "wage-labor" that goes into producing it, or some such nonsense.
But, if you are really worried about how much a company is making, you are always free to check out its annual report to find its profit margin. This can at least give you a rough estimate of a product's costs.
That sounds like an opportunity to me. This is a free country, so why don't you take advantage of this market and go out and start your own company. You could not only take a share of that profit, you could help consumers by offering them lower prices.
I know you were kidding, I love sarcastic humor!, really
it is if they've already bought for the kids, drinks (3.50) each, popcorn, candy, all people want to do is get what they want to snack on and sit down. to punish the high school kids that work concession because they didn't upsell what the people hadn't ordered (they had a manager who was behind concessions precisely for this reason, to listen), I think is a bitttttttttt excessive.
I understand but this practice is very common. In a rush before a movie nobody has time for this I agree you want to get out of there asap because you think you're missing the start.
I think everyone realizes that theaters have expenses but so do every other type of business. Taking your numbers the theater at that time made approximately $600,000 in ticket sales for the 6 weeks you described assuming there was more than one showing and probably at least as much in concessions.
So we are talking close to $1.2 million by the time all is said an done. Maybe I'm inflating the numbers a bit because I'm sure not all showings were packed but I assumed most tickets sold also resulted in at least the same amount of concessions. Maybe at that time you could get a drink and popcorn for under 3.25 I don't know. Either way we still talking a huge amount of revenue even after things are adjusted and the movie companies are paid their cut. So there is plenty left over to run the theather and pay employees minimum wage for cleanup.
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