Attendance is down due to high ticket prices, rude people at theaters talking and playing with their phones and the home theater technology. A lot of the multi-screen theater complexes have closed in past few years.
At this point attendance is fallow, it dropped a bit 10 years ago but it’s basically staying the same. Complexes have closed due to rising competition with ticket sales the same new franchises popping up are slicing the pie hard. Also the digital switch, not everybody was ready for that; digital projectors are insanely expensive, hundreds of thousands, and if you have a 16 screen theater that’s a wallop. That’s actually what drove Harkins in to kick a lot of butts, all digital and well financed, also well advertised pushing digital as better (it’s not, at least until bad projectionists screw up film) they ate a lot of market during the transition.
And of course the market always changes. Local dinner theaters started showing up with recliners and beer and good food, now AMC is introducing new theaters with recliners and beer and good food and rebranding the old style “classic”. It’s a smart move, for theaters the money has always been in the concessions anyway, and by serving good food they still make that cash, and get goodwill instead of the constant complaints about overpriced stale candy.
And what can you turn an empty out of business theater into?
An out of business and empty Wall Mart or JC Pennies can be turned into some other form of retail enterprise.
If you come up some other profit making use for a theater I’d sure like to know and so would people who like to buy low and sell high.
Lot of cheap theaters out there for sale.