Occupy Theaters

[lacktheknack]

I get that the movie theaters need to make a profit somehow - I don't like that idea that I'm supposed to just accept it on the basis that it's their only real way to make a profit. I'm not responsible to them and I don't have to see them make a profit.

Wat

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...OK, then. Considering how consumers are the ONLY way that they're able to make money, who's responsibility IS it to give them money?

Now matter how you twist it, the only logical answer is you. I don't understand how you can come to any other conclusion without being the most entitled person in existence.

If you insist that you don't care if they make a profit or not, then the only conclusion is that you don't care to watch movies in theaters, making this the most pointless thread of the day.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I get that the movie theaters need to make a profit somehow - I don't like that idea that I'm supposed to just accept it on the basis that it's their only real way to make a profit. I'm not responsible to them and I don't have to see them make a profit.

Wat

Wat wat wat wat wat wat wat wat wat wat wat

...OK, then. Considering how consumers are the ONLY way that they're able to make money, who's responsibility IS it to give them money?

Now matter how you twist it, the only logical answer is you. I don't understand how you can come to any other conclusion without being the most entitled person in existence.

If you insist that you don't care if they make a profit or not, then the only conclusion is that you don't care to watch movies in theaters, making this the most pointless thread of the day.

Pretty much this. OP, you're right that it's not your responsibility as a consumer to help the theater turn a profit. If you have any (legal) means of getting tickets and concessions free or cheap, go for it. But you have to recognize that it is the theater's responsibility as a producer (actually, a service provider in this case) to turn as high of a profit off of you as it possibly can. It's the interplay between the fundamentally opposed goals of producers and consumers that regulate prices in a capitalistic economy.

What's more, the theaters don't even have particularly high profit margins; even with the overpriced concessions, most of them are still just barely scraping by. Heck, there's a theater in walking distance of my university that shut down "for renovations" over a year ago, and never opened back up, because the money just wasn't there. That's at a theater within walking distance of a University campus, full of people who love to watch movies. If they couldn't stay in business, what makes you think the average theater is pulling in tons of money?

Basically, you need to learn that when a product costs a company money, that cost will always be passed on to the consumer. They have to do that just to break even. They also have to charge more than what just doing that would call for, because they also have to turn a profit. The only real exception is the occasional non-profit theater. There's one in the next town over from my college. The thing about that, though, is that it's not a first run theater. Oh, they occasionally get new releases (I watched the sixth Harry Potter movie there at the midnight release, for example), but most of what they do is screenings of obscure and older movies -- mostly documentaries about rock bands in the case of this specific theater, combined with a weekly showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. For a theater that lives and dies by first run films, though? You're gonna have to pay if you want popcorn.

 

[Viptorian]

Now, forgive the pun, I think if any corporation deserves protesting, it's the movie theaters.

Now, I fully understand that a company has to make money somehow. But I don't have to be content with it, and I was a bit angry that he was actually trying to justify ("Well it's the production companies that get all the ticket money, so we have to charge a lot or else we don't make anything").

I mean, I'm the consumer; my job is to get everything I can for free. I don't have to respect a company's need to profit off of me.

You're flat wrong.

As a consumer, your job is to exchange fair compensation for goods and services provided. As previously stated, ticket prices are mostly dictated by movie companies, not the theater. The reason you get cheaper rates during the day is because they're trying to entice you to go to the movie so they can justify even being open at that time of day (which they're required to be, lest the lose out on the right to show movies, per the distributors). If you don't think that the compensation demanded of you is fair given the goods and services rendered, your choice is to not attain those from that provider. You have a right to refuse to use their service and they have a right to refuse you service based you your unwillingness to give them their desired compensation for their investments (seats, staff, bathrooms, audio, cleaning the theater after each use, etc.) and service.

You mentioned a quote from Obama, "movie theaters don't have an inherent right to a certain amount of profit." You misinterpret the meaning, however (at least, I hope he didn't mean it the way you use it). Movie theaters don't have an INHERENT right to an amount of profit, but they DO have the right to try and achieve it. What this means is that if a movie theater thinks they deserve $10M per year, they need to work for $10M per year, they can't simply do nothing and expect that to happen, especially by means of bailouts or other outside sources.

You got into a movie for free by, in terms of a free market stand point, dubious means. You also knew beforehand that concessions were expensive, but you purchased them anyway. That's on you, NOT the movie theaters. I know full well that if I buy a 6 pack of beer at the store, it will cost me $12. That same amount of beer at a baseball game would cost me around $40. I know this ahead of time, yet sometimes I opt to pay for it because that is the value of the beer at the time.

When you purchased your concessions, you paid their market price, meaning you agreed to the terms set before you. Your options may not have been ideal - pay a lot or not eat/drink - but it was an option and you created a demand for their goods at a price you were willing (albeit unhappy) to pay. Your fault.

Stop complaining about not getting what you want for as cheap as you want. In a quasi-free market, the supply/demand set the prices (for the most part) and your situation will shift that curve accordingly. If the price point were too high, you wouldn't have purchased the food and drink, so don't act like a child.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Now, forgive the pun, I think if any corporation deserves protesting, it's the movie theaters.

Now, I fully understand that a company has to make money somehow. But I don't have to be content with it, and I was a bit angry that he was actually trying to justify ("Well it's the production companies that get all the ticket money, so we have to charge a lot or else we don't make anything").

I mean, I'm the consumer; my job is to get everything I can for free. I don't have to respect a company's need to profit off of me.

You're flat wrong.

As a consumer, your job is to exchange fair compensation for goods and services provided. As previously stated, ticket prices are mostly dictated by movie companies, not the theater. The reason you get cheaper rates during the day is because they're trying to entice you to go to the movie so they can justify even being open at that time of day (which they're required to be, lest the lose out on the right to show movies, per the distributors). If you don't think that the compensation demanded of you is fair given the goods and services rendered, your choice is to not attain those from that provider. You have a right to refuse to use their service and they have a right to refuse you service based you your unwillingness to give them their desired compensation for their investments (seats, staff, bathrooms, audio, cleaning the theater after each use, etc.) and service.

You mentioned a quote from Obama, "movie theaters don't have an inherent right to a certain amount of profit." You misinterpret the meaning, however (at least, I hope he didn't mean it the way you use it). Movie theaters don't have an INHERENT right to an amount of profit, but they DO have the right to try and achieve it. What this means is that if a movie theater thinks they deserve $10M per year, they need to work for $10M per year, they can't simply do nothing and expect that to happen, especially by means of bailouts or other outside sources.

You got into a movie for free by, in terms of a free market stand point, dubious means. You also knew beforehand that concessions were expensive, but you purchased them anyway. That's on you, NOT the movie theaters. I know full well that if I buy a 6 pack of beer at the store, it will cost me $12. That same amount of beer at a baseball game would cost me around $40. I know this ahead of time, yet sometimes I opt to pay for it because that is the value of the beer at the time.

When you purchased your concessions, you paid their market price, meaning you agreed to the terms set before you. Your options may not have been ideal - pay a lot or not eat/drink - but it was an option and you created a demand for their goods at a price you were willing (albeit unhappy) to pay. Your fault.

Stop complaining about not getting what you want for as cheap as you want. In a quasi-free market, the supply/demand set the prices (for the most part) and your situation will shift that curve accordingly. If the price point were too high, you wouldn't have purchased the food and drink, so don't act like a child.

The quote didn't even originally reference movie theaters: Obama said something more along the lines of "Corporations don't have an inherent right to a certain amount of profit," the operative words being "inherent" and "certain amount."

 

[Viptorian]

the operative words being "inherent" and "certain amount."

Bingo

 

[Nickolai77]

They rip you off with food and drinks in cinemas in the UK as well. It's £3 last time i checked for a bag of sweets! (£1 in Asda or Tesco). Usually i just buy snacks and drink from a nearby supermarket or even bring stuff from home and smuggle that with me into the cinema.

 

[RDubayoo]

You mentioned a quote from Obama, "movie theaters don't have an inherent right to a certain amount of profit." You misinterpret the meaning, however (at least, I hope he didn't mean it the way you use it). Movie theaters don't have an INHERENT right to an amount of profit, but they DO have the right to try and achieve it. What this means is that if a movie theater thinks they deserve $10M per year, they need to work for $10M per year, they can't simply do nothing and expect that to happen, especially by means of bailouts or other outside sources.

Actually he probably did mean it that way. You have to remember that Obama is a hard-left socialist who doesn't understand economics or basic human nature. So, it's entirely possible he believes that at a certain point, a movie theater (or a corporation, whatever) has made enough profit and must begin to share more of its wealth... which basically means getting taxed more so the government can throw their money away.

Also, if I catch a bunch of hooligans "occupying" a theater in the same way New York was "occupied," I'm taking a crowbar to them.

 

[Puddleknock]

Well I thought this thread was going to be different. I read theaters (or theatres in my British head) and thought it was going to be about occupying the performing arts. So I guess I was a little off the mark.


In regards to cinema tickets yeah they can be expensive but they are not the only way, nor in my opinion the best way, to watch a film. If the tickets prices are too much then don't go, simple as that really, its why I've not been to the cinema since I saw Avatar in its opening week.

 

[Snotnarok]

I think he was just saying he can see why they did charge more but he probably would agree they charge too much.

Hell I remember way back I went to the cokeacola machine and I was expecting it to be a bit more and I get there and it's 3.00 for a 20oz...that's when 20oz were 1.25, so it's not even in the ballpark of sane pricing.

 

[Callate]

I do find it somewhat mystifying that in a few short years we've gone from "We need to show a silent slide show of advertisements before the movie in order to make a profit" to "we need to show a constant blaring loop of advertising before the movie that makes conversation with those who have joined you for a movie impossible, show four or five advertisements for cars, soft drinks, cell phones, and video games when the movie's actual 'start time' begins, and charge you $5 for a soda you can get for $.99 two hundred feet away if we're going to have any chance to make a profit".

Jeez, guys. Did you really get screwed over that badly the last time you signed paperwork with Hollywood? It's hard to grasp the idea that any business that's selling things at a 2000% mark-up and forcing people to sit through as much as half an hour of advertising to get to the product they've allegedly paid for isn't doing something wrong.

 

[00slash00]

im confused, was this a joke or are you actually upset that movie theatre are trying to make enough money to stay in business? when i go to see movie, which is pretty rare, i never buy food there. sometimes ill sneak in food or drink and sometimes i just wont eat or drink anything at all. movies arent that long, you can survive without a bag of popcorn for 2 hours

 

[Aurgelmir]

Sure movie tickets are rather expensive, but hey you are getting to see a new movie in generally good theaters.

Where I live they don't stop you from bringing your own food into the theater, but the shop at the theater is really good so I usually use it, but I don't have to.

So all in all I personally don't find it to expensive, in fact I use the price of a movie ticket as my benchmark for entertainment pricing.

 

[fozzy360]

I mean, I'm the consumer; my job is to get everything I can for free.

Then, would you even be a consumer at that point?

Look, be mad all you want at the concession prices at theaters. Yeah, it stinks, but guess what? You don't need movies. They aren't required for you to have a decent quality of living. They are a luxury expense and really not needed. Plus, no one is forcing you to buy the damn food. Don't be mad because the theaters have to find new ways of making back what little money they can, and don't be so damn entitled, either.

Plus, when you were arguing with your friend about this, that wasn't a justification. That was a reason.