Movie theater subscriptions - You stream to the movies

You have to be in the movie theatres parking lot to book the ticket? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. That must be a concession to theatre owners. That alone will kill it. What a dumb, dumb move.

I wish this company was public so I could short sell it.

My guess is that they restrict it that way to keep people from booking tickets that they aren’t committed to. If I could buy a ticket from anywhere, I might book one if I was even slightly interested in going because there’s no downside to me. If I’m in the parking lot, then I’m kind of committed to going.

And that’s not to mention the people who would intentionally buy a ticket a day just for giggles, with no intention of using them.

Most theaters aren’t fully booked, and these tickets don’t cover “special” showings like 3D and so on. My feeling is they’ll make money on most of their customers.

Regarding the geofencing, on rooted android or jailbroken iOS you can just spoof your location.

The price was too high before for my area. Aside from the fact only the crappy theater here is AMC, I think it is anyway never go, it doesn’t cost me 10 dollars a ticket to see a movie now. I’d have to see more than five movies a month to use a service like that, and since we don’t have assigned seating… that would never happen.

Look, if anyone is going to profit off of AMC’s customers data, it’s going to be AMC! I think that’s their problem with it.

I was wondering how that worked. MoviePass says you can grab your movie ticket at the kiosk, which I really like (I hate standing in lines and in my area nobody seems to use the kiosks). Now I know why: you’re merely swiping a debit card. Interesting.

I think this is probably correct, plus it cuts off another easy avenue for sharing the subscription. You can’t use the MoviePass with a Fandango account at all (since Fandango charges a service fee, raising the ticket price), but if you can buy directly from a theater online and print your tickets, it would be trivial to order a ticket and email it to a friend without leaving the couch.

Wait you guys don’t have to pay a service fee to buy tickets online from your theater. I sure do. It’s one of the reason I never do that, the only thing the convenience fee does is save me less than a minute in line.

Oh, maybe you do, I don’t know. I didn’t go far enough through Regal’s website to find out just now. I’m certain you do for Fandango, but I was just guessing that maybe directly through some theaters you wouldn’t have to.

One other minor perk is that using MoviePass doesn’t interfere with also using your loyalty card (Regal Crown Club card in my neck of the woods).

Maybe that’s not so much a perk as it is “a way in which MoviePass does not make things worse”. But either way, every seven movies or so that I “pay” for (for real or with MoviePass) is worth a free ticket from the theater, so I’m glad those still accumulate. I can redeem those for the occasional movie that I really do want to see more than once in the theaters.

Even with all those caveats I’m still scratching my head thinking it is totally a steal…what gives? Also I always buy my ticket at the theater right before the show so this lack of fandango jazz isn’t a con. What the hell am I missing?

Nothing, it’s a great deal and worth the effort if you watch more than one or two movies in theaters per month. If it becomes popular they’ll add more restrictions but right now they’re just trying to monetize otherwise empty seats.

Yesterday I used the much maligned in this thread for some reason MoviePass. Worked like a charm.

Drove to the theater. Checked in my movie after I got out of my car. It said I had 30 minutes to buy a ticket for the selected movie, but that was plenty of time. I decided to go to the auto-kiosk because there was a line. Ticket get. LOL it was $14 and change. More than the monthly payment of MoviePass.

If I see 3 movies a month I will be below theater prices circa 1993. ($3.75) But it is funny that you can save money with just a single movie a month.

After venting six months’ worth of frustrations with the service, I do want to sort of temper my earlier impressions.

First, it’s no longer asking me to photograph every ticket stub. I don’t know if that reflects a policy change, or if there are just some faceless algorithms behind the scenes making those decisions. I was seeing at least two movies a week for a while, then I didn’t make it to the theater for three or four weeks. Since then (which is also since the publicity and price drop) I haven’t been asked to verify tickets on the last four movies I’ve seen.

So that’s a welcome improvement, that was easily the biggest point of friction in the actual theater experience.

But most importantly, that price drop. I don’t see how it can possibly be sustainable; I don’t expect the service to survive without drastically changing the price or the whole model, but until then, $10/month goes a long way toward mitigating all of the other restrictions.

The pressure is off to get to a theater every week to get my money’s worth or to carefully arrange my weekends so I can see more than one flick without them landing closer than 24 hours apart.

So for as long as this thing survives in its current form, I’d cautiously recommend it again. Enjoy it while it lasts!

I think it’s mainly been maligned as a business model, rather than for consumers. Though I’m not personally going to see even one movie a month in the cinema. My membership of the local cinema gets me four free tickets a year, which is about right.

I assume (but could be wrong) he was referring at least in part to my harsh reactions. When it was $40/month it added pressure to make sure I was maximizing my movie-going, and then all the restrictions started to feel like death by a thousand cuts. I would—and did—freely “malign it as a consumer” in that scenario.

I guess it is fair to say as an early adopter there were many growing pains with the service but right now it seems like a no-brainer. As long as you see at least 1 movie a month you’ll likely save money.

Regarding the business model…I’ll gladly ride it to ruin at the current price point.

Like I said earlier, if it proves popular I expect them to start adding more restrictions. So you can’t get a ticket for a show that’s >90% sold-out, for example, or it can only be used for movies that have been out for 2 weeks, or only matinees. But for now, it’s an amazing deal.

Matinees I can see because that would actually lower the price of the ticket, but everything else seems arbitrary. The great trick is the theater does not know you are using MoviePass, and MoviePass is just paying for the movie on your behalf with a Mastercard debit card…so they will be totally losing money on me with a single movie ticket price at 15 bucks.

I haven’t tried getting a ticket from a human body yet to see if they have internal training to deny the card but I doubt it.

That assumes the tickets are entirely paid with subscription revenue and VC money and there’s no coordination with theaters at all. My assumption is they coordinate with theaters to fill empty seats. If they’re really paying full price with no compensation, the instant they run out of VC money they’ll turn off the lights.

That seems less likely, because VC groups protect their investments and would never have approved the switch to a $10 subscription without compensatory measures for obvious reasons.