 | | Dear Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse Family, I am following up based on the overwhelmingly positive response to our survey about a new directions for Movies at the Arlington Drafthouse. Your enthusiasm and responses were incredibly helpful and have significantly influenced the direction of our shared community business. Thank you so much for being the best customer base ever. In this letter we will first explain the new direction, discuss some of the more recent upgrades, and then detail some of the findings from the Survey. After that we will remind everyone that our holiday season starts this weekend and we have a great selection of entertainment. :) Art-House Model As my last letter detailed, the sub-run top box office model has been in decline and a change is necessary. A common theme in your responses was a desire for the Drafthouse to remain eclectic and unique. Many of you felt a first run summer season with top box office movies, would have not been unique enough. Based on your responses, we have decided our new theme of booking will be art-house/independent films. This is a significant change from our original plan to do top box office films. We will continue with the plan to do first release movies during the summer and sub-run movies in the Fall, Winter, and Spring - under the new art-house genre. Flexible Booking The studios that book art-house /independent films are more flexible in their terms (when compared to top box office studios), requiring only a week play. This allows us to do a couple weeks of a different first release movie each week and blend in a comedy weekend here and there during the summer. - Summer Season - We will bring in newly released first run art-house films for two out of three weeks. On the third week we will bring in older art-house films or film festivals that would allow us to do comedy and family films periodically throughout the summer.
- Fall, Winter, Spring Season - We will book sub-run art-house films that allow us to do a diversity of entertainment including comedy and family films each week. In winter we will continue to focus on Oscar watch films blended with art-house films.
Family Films - Summer Season - we will rotate through weeks that allow for us to do family friendly movies on some weekend.
- Fall, Winter, Spring Season - We will continue to bring in family friendly top box office sub-run films as matinees.
Live Comedy - Summer Season - Top national comics will be available every third weekend, in order to keep programming available for comedy fans in Arlington.
- Fall, Winter, Spring Season - Every weekend will feature top national comics for 4-5 shows.
Discount Mondays and Tuesdays - Summer Season - We will not be able to offer discount Mondays and Tuesdays as the terms of our deals with the studios would prevent it.
- Fall, Winter, Spring Season - We might be able to offer a discount, but not as deep as $2. We will learn more as we get closer to the Fall of 2017.
Movie Pricing - Summer Season - I expect our movie pricing to be about $8.50 for primetime and $7 for matinee/discount. We will know more as we get closer to the Summer launch.
- Fall, Winter, Spring Season - I expect our movie pricing to about $8.50 for primetime and $7 for matinee/discount. We will know more as we get closer to the Summer launch.
Sporting Events - Summer Season - Sporting events will be difficult if they fall on a week where we have a first release film playing. But we may be able to do some.
- Fall, Winter, Spring Season - We will continue to blend sporting events in to our schedule.
DC Location - Comedy - We will continue to book live comedy year-round at this location with 4-5 national comic shows each week and 2-3 local comic shows each week.
- Esports - Starting in January 2017, the DC location will dedicate Saturday during the day, all of Sunday, and week nights to building an Esports line of business. We will start with 16 tournaments per year and expect to grow to offer 50 tournaments per year as we work with promoters in the Esports industry.
Timeline Changes to movie programming in Arlington will begin in January 2017 leading up to an official switch to art-house programming in May of 2017. In January we will start booking more independent films to begin the transition. In May we will begin the first release art-house films for the Summer. In May our contracts with studios will change, which will allow us access to more films earlier - but less control of the pricing. Discount $2 Mondays and Tuesday will end starting in May of 2017. The new discount price will be around $7. Seating and Upgrades We have been working hard to bring in new seats to replace the old seats. Over 120 have been replaced in the last two weeks alone. More to come throughout the winter. In addition, we replaced the wall paper in the entrance and main hallways of the main theater. The marque has been upgraded to help keep the sign working more consistently. Our parking lot was fully resurfaced, adding more spaces to the lot. Great progress in the last month alone! Crowd Funding for Marquee A number of you mentioned doing crowd funding for the marquee to update it. Some had actual old theater experience and "new their stuff". Thank you. We will be putting together a movement to upgrade the marquee in the near future. Parking Confusion Some customers mentioned that ease of parking was one of the things they appreciated about the Arlington Drafthouse. Others mentioned parking as a difficulty. I wanted to take a moment to let people know that in addition to our private lot behind the Drafthouse (and McDonalds) next to the AT&T building - there is public parking in the Hallstead Apartment building across the street. Leaving plenty of parking within one city block. Of course street parking is available, especially closer to the Library and Patrick Henry Elementary. "Don't Change" Some asked that we don't change our movie scheduling. Unfortunately, this is not a reality for us. The decline in sub-run movie business has been so significant - we can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. The studios have no interest in supporting the sub-run movie market and the industry is just about obsolete. We have to try something new - or abandon movies all together. Art-house/independent films give us the flexibility in booking to allow for more recent offerings. We will do our best to keep a discount going - but need to work that out with the studios. We hope you take the time to join us for some of our art-house films. Menu We still need some time to work out streamlining the menu offering. The hope is to offer a menu that will please the audience, while making sure we can improve speed of service in the theater. A number of you praised our food offerings, while many asked for better options. All of these responses are being included in our efforts to revamp the menu. How Can I Help? Many asked how they can help. Please take the time to visit us this holiday season or during the winter for stand-up, the superbowl, oscar movies, etc. The holiday season is included below in this email. We hope to see you here at the Drafthouse! The Results of the Survey The survey was very helpful to inform this decision. We so appreciate your time and dedication to this... - Over 2,100 people responded! With nearly 60% providing comments
- The audience base was split. Mainly because 50% of you, look to us primarily for live comedy entertainment and the other 50% look to us primarily for movie entertainment. This underscores the importance of remaining eclectic with our entertainment, making sure we continue with a variety of entertainment.
- The vast majority of the comments included well wishes and a commitment to support us no matter what path we took. Thank you all so much!
- A number of responses were concerned about losing the discount films on Monday and Tuesday. We unfortunately cannot improve our movie offering - and keep providing the highly discounted evenings.
- 60% of the responses said they would see a first release film at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse over the same film playing in a local nearby theater. That response was much higher when the film genre preference was art-house/independent films.
- 46% of the responses said they would like to see arthouse/independent films at the Drafthouse. This is high, considering how specialized these films are with their target audience.
- 69% of the responses said they would like to see comedy films at the Drafthouse. When booking films we will take this in to consideration and lean towards comedy films.
- 60% of the responses said they would like to see action and adventure films at the Drafthouse.
- Horror was the lowest genre at only 9% of the responses being interested in seeing those films at the Drafthouse.
Thank you again for your time and dedication to this process. By switching to a more exclusive and unique programming of art-house films, we can keep the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse relevant in the DC area movie scene. Many details have to be worked out, and we thank you for your support while we transition to the new model. In order to better understand the art-house/independent movie industry, we will be joining an association of similar single-screen art-house theaters and looking to bring on a curator to select the films. We are so excited for the opportunity to serve you.
A holiday promotion...
Now that it is December we have a wonderful holiday offering this year. We hope you can join us at our DC and Arlington locations.
The Second City's Nut-Cracking Holiday Revue Live at the Arlington Drafthouse (Dec 9th - 18th)
2016 Christmas Movie Festival (Dec 11th)
Bah, Humbug! An Improvised Christmas Carol Live at Drafthouse Comedy in DC (Dec 8th - 17th)
Bah, Humbug! An Improvised Christmas Carol Live at the Arlington Drafthouse (Dec 22nd & 23rd)
House Band's Christmas Not-So Spectacular with Special Guest Rob Cantrell (Dec 23rd)
It's A Wonderful Night at the Drafthouse (Wonderful Life Screening - Dec 12th - 21st)
Sincerely,
Management
Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse
Drafthouse Comedy in DC
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