Both theaters operated till the late 90’S when the inside 4 screen closed to make way for the renovation of the plaza. The outside theater now wheaton 11 was converted from an old bowling alley where the theaters had low ceilings and projection bounced off of mirrors in order to get the picture low enough to hit the screen.
I did get to see Raiders at the KB Cinema. A Sold out front row experience. Great movie but hated the front row. Only 2 movies I sat down front for were that one and Training Day. I guess I always did like the quirky lightly attended theaters. Especially the early matinees.
The Pedas Brothers own a lot of property in and around the District. I believe that Ted Pedas is still involved with the local National Association of Theater Owners and he definitely supports the local theater scene. Also I wonder how long the non compete clause was when they sold Circle to Cineplex. Maybe AFI could do that double billing?
Theory will vary based on the building that you operate. In some cases you need to be worried about what time the movies get out. I worked at one plex where you could not have a movie get out when one was coming in. didnt matter if you had 2,3,4,6 or 7 coming out as long as you didnt have people coming in at the same time Even though we had an exit corridor with restrooms people always wanted to leave the exact same way they came in even if it brought you to nearly the exact same point. I even remember one time where we had no choice but to schedule an entry and egress at the same time and persuade customers to use the exit corridor, this one lady was adamant about leaving the way she wanted to, so I let her. I had about 800 people coming in the entry and she tried to push her way through in the opposite direction all the while making all sorts of faces:). Now I work in a plex where the primary goal is to reduce the flow of customers coming in at one time and keeping lines down. We start new and high attended movies on the :00 :15 :30 :45 with no 2 films starting at the same time. You tweak things a bit for various reasons. Auditorium placement is basically Brand new movies get biggest theaters, rest of theaters sorted by last week attendance. On friday we watch and adjust as needed on the fly. “I so love electronic marquees and hate them when they dont work.”
The only reason that AVALON posts which theater the film is being shown in is because of ADA. There is only a staircase to get to the second level. There is NO ELEVATOR so even if they wanted to put the higher attended movie downstairs, they would have to update the recording to notify. Hence the evil words SOLD OUT.
The reason that your national guard commercial sounded better at the UPTOWN is most likely that the uptown is still using actual film stock for their pre show commercials thereby using the same sound setup that they would use for the movie. If I remember correctly the uptown still just has the slide projector for ads, while MAZZA is part of AMC’s National Cinemedia Network so that the commercials are being run through the HD projector and the sound is being presented through an aux or non-sync channel which is not as rich as the 5.1 or 7.1 Dolby Digital systems.
Regal’s primary fincial backers have enough money to buy what they want. Even though they have bought many companies including the original Regal Cinemas, Act III, Cobb, UA, Edwards, RC, Hoyts US theaters, Eastern Federal. Once the chapter 11’s allowed a positive restructuring of he industry, most circuits have a neutral to positive balance of competitive locations. Even if many of hese locations may not be compeitive if faced w/ a new megaplex DLP theater.
The original theater was twinned by just putting a big wall down the middle.( like they did at the allen. It was never twinned again. Instead they went next door to the left and put 2 theaters there you went in and there was a hall to the left . I remember that with any kind of rain you would get 3-6 inches of water in the front half of theater the side that actually faced flower avenue. But then it was a dollar house then. Movie, popcorn and soda for $3.00
AMC will not twin the theater, they dont operate twins either. What they will do is operate it at what they think will generate the highest profit until the lease runs out. At that point they’ll either choose to leave or renew the lease. I do believe that this is the only single screener that they operate courtesy of the loews cineplex merger/buyout. The twinning of theaters is not the way things are done anymore. It’s brand new stadium complexes, and that’s what American Multi Cinema is building. They are just plain closing what they call non-strategic assets they’ve been doing that for the last 6 years.
This theater had no astehic value whatsoever a very plain theater. It just had a huge single screen, one of the best places to see Top Gun though and get some ice cream at Giffords afterwards.
Both theaters operated till the late 90’S when the inside 4 screen closed to make way for the renovation of the plaza. The outside theater now wheaton 11 was converted from an old bowling alley where the theaters had low ceilings and projection bounced off of mirrors in order to get the picture low enough to hit the screen.
I did get to see Raiders at the KB Cinema. A Sold out front row experience. Great movie but hated the front row. Only 2 movies I sat down front for were that one and Training Day. I guess I always did like the quirky lightly attended theaters. Especially the early matinees.
The Pedas Brothers own a lot of property in and around the District. I believe that Ted Pedas is still involved with the local National Association of Theater Owners and he definitely supports the local theater scene. Also I wonder how long the non compete clause was when they sold Circle to Cineplex. Maybe AFI could do that double billing?
Theory will vary based on the building that you operate. In some cases you need to be worried about what time the movies get out. I worked at one plex where you could not have a movie get out when one was coming in. didnt matter if you had 2,3,4,6 or 7 coming out as long as you didnt have people coming in at the same time Even though we had an exit corridor with restrooms people always wanted to leave the exact same way they came in even if it brought you to nearly the exact same point. I even remember one time where we had no choice but to schedule an entry and egress at the same time and persuade customers to use the exit corridor, this one lady was adamant about leaving the way she wanted to, so I let her. I had about 800 people coming in the entry and she tried to push her way through in the opposite direction all the while making all sorts of faces:). Now I work in a plex where the primary goal is to reduce the flow of customers coming in at one time and keeping lines down. We start new and high attended movies on the :00 :15 :30 :45 with no 2 films starting at the same time. You tweak things a bit for various reasons. Auditorium placement is basically Brand new movies get biggest theaters, rest of theaters sorted by last week attendance. On friday we watch and adjust as needed on the fly. “I so love electronic marquees and hate them when they dont work.”
The old wheaton plaza theater is where the target is now.
The only reason that AVALON posts which theater the film is being shown in is because of ADA. There is only a staircase to get to the second level. There is NO ELEVATOR so even if they wanted to put the higher attended movie downstairs, they would have to update the recording to notify. Hence the evil words SOLD OUT.
The reason that your national guard commercial sounded better at the UPTOWN is most likely that the uptown is still using actual film stock for their pre show commercials thereby using the same sound setup that they would use for the movie. If I remember correctly the uptown still just has the slide projector for ads, while MAZZA is part of AMC’s National Cinemedia Network so that the commercials are being run through the HD projector and the sound is being presented through an aux or non-sync channel which is not as rich as the 5.1 or 7.1 Dolby Digital systems.
Regal’s primary fincial backers have enough money to buy what they want. Even though they have bought many companies including the original Regal Cinemas, Act III, Cobb, UA, Edwards, RC, Hoyts US theaters, Eastern Federal. Once the chapter 11’s allowed a positive restructuring of he industry, most circuits have a neutral to positive balance of competitive locations. Even if many of hese locations may not be compeitive if faced w/ a new megaplex DLP theater.
The original theater was twinned by just putting a big wall down the middle.( like they did at the allen. It was never twinned again. Instead they went next door to the left and put 2 theaters there you went in and there was a hall to the left . I remember that with any kind of rain you would get 3-6 inches of water in the front half of theater the side that actually faced flower avenue. But then it was a dollar house then. Movie, popcorn and soda for $3.00
AMC will not twin the theater, they dont operate twins either. What they will do is operate it at what they think will generate the highest profit until the lease runs out. At that point they’ll either choose to leave or renew the lease. I do believe that this is the only single screener that they operate courtesy of the loews cineplex merger/buyout. The twinning of theaters is not the way things are done anymore. It’s brand new stadium complexes, and that’s what American Multi Cinema is building. They are just plain closing what they call non-strategic assets they’ve been doing that for the last 6 years.
This theater had no astehic value whatsoever a very plain theater. It just had a huge single screen, one of the best places to see Top Gun though and get some ice cream at Giffords afterwards.