Atom Tickets

How to Support Movie Theaters During the COVID-19 Crisis

Posted on by SceneBefore

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Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! COVID-19 has certainly made its presence known, and things have been looking particularly interesting. It is hard to know when exactly the U.S., or other countries for that matter, will be in ship shape, I might discuss that more in my next entry to the ongoing series “Movies and COVID-19: Behind the Scenes,” but one of the heavily affected portions of this matter is the movie theater industry. Since it is impossible to get people together, movie theaters have shut down their doors for the time being, leaving chains, art houses, and local staples in total emptiness. There is a good chance that your local theater is hurting, even just the slightest. So here are some ways that you could potentially help your movie theater survive this crisis.

BUY GIFT CARDS

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I’m not sure if every theater has a program for this, but many of the theaters near me do. One of the easiest ways to give the movie theaters some support in this time is to buy their gift cards. While it is unlikely that you will get to use it anytime soon, it will ignite a reason for you to go back to the cinema when this all ends. You can buy a gift card for yourself right now, and consider it an indulgence in due time. Or, if you know a movie buff in life that loves the cinema and will do anything to get their butt in a theater seat, it’ll remind them of how much they love the theatrical experience and they too will have a reason to go back. Gift cards exist for both chains and smaller theaters, so if you really want to put some money towards the community staple, be my guest. At the same time though, I will remind you chains are hurting too. In fact, AMC is speculated to not survive this crisis, so if you want to support them, I’d recommend you do that. Or, if you do want to buy a gift card from them, you can support their new On Demand service they just put out, which is now available on smart devices, including TVs. Although I cannot confirm that all TVs have it, as I have a Sony Android TV and I was not able to find it there. You can buy gift cards online and GET THIS, the only places that are open right now, grocery stores and pharmacies! So you’re in luck if you need some hand sanitizer right now!

Also, one recommendation, don’t buy gift cards to third party ticketing sites like Fandango or Atom Tickets. I’m not saying don’t do it now or ever, but I’m more or less trying to point out that this more about movie theaters than the third party sites. In fact, Fandango might be doing relatively fine at this point since they have a rather well-known On Demand service. I have nothing against these sites, in fact I have a Fandango VIP account, but again, this is more about theaters than anything else here.

BECOME A MEMBER

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A lot of smaller movie theaters have memberships to back them up and keep them financially stable. One of my personal favorites is the Coolidge Corner Theatre, located in Brookline, Massachusetts, which I would become a member for, but I do not go there as often as I would like to, so I don’t have much of a need for a membership. However, it is undeniable that the membership can give a ton of perks like discounts towards tickets and food, email updates, and invitations to special events. In fact, I shared this once in my “Movies and COVID-19” series, but I’ll share it again because I think it is really important. Edgar Wright put out a tweet for people to shout out theaters that have memberships.

Some of the cinemas that have been shouted out here include the Music Box Theatre (Chicago, IL), the Roxie Theatre (San Francisco, CA), the Hyde Park Picture House (Leeds, UK), and the Brattle Theatre (Cambridge, MA). These memberships not only benefit the theater and allow them keep themselves and their organization afloat, but as mentioned, they will benefit you with tons of perks. Now keep in mind, some of what you’ll find is not cheap, so if you are not willing to invest your money in a theater membership, it may be understandable.

SUPPORT POP-UP SALES

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There’s a saying that movie theaters are not technically in the movie business, and instead, in the candy business. After all, the studios take a lot of money from ticket sales, whereas theaters mainly make their money through food sales. Popcorn may be expensive, but it’s a system that works! One of the suggestions I had early on in this crisis is that even though you cannot show movies in theaters, they should still keep snack stands in operation in case someone wants a quick bite. Now that may not work for all spots, but I imagine some would get business, because popcorn rocks. Speaking of popcorn at the movies, you can still get it right now, because select theaters are doing pop-up sales, where they will focus on selling food such as popcorn.

For the record, if you live near a chain theater like an AMC, there is a good chance that they won’t be doing this, but if you have a theater that goes by a lesser known name or presents itself as a local establishment, they may have you covered.

ORDER TAKEOUT/DELIVERY

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Sticking with the idea of food, aside from keeping stands open to potentially make some money, not to mention keep people employed during this dire time, another idea I had was potentially adding a delivery service to people who are unwilling to go out. In fact, some of the chains are doing just that. Alamo Drafthouse locations in Austin, TX, Denver, CO, and Raleigh, NC are on services including Grubhub, Favor, and Doordash. So if you live in those areas and want some of Alamo Drafthouse’s food, you are in luck. Another chain by the name of Studio Movie Grill, which has 43 locations in ten states is also doing takeout and delivery. Not just that, but they are also offering 2 free movie tickets with every order. For the record, this takeout and delivery deal is being done in select locations in California, Texas, and Florida, plus some of them are ONLY doing curbside takeout. Or, if you live in Michigan, you may be familiar with Celebration Cinema, a local chain that operates 14 locations. One of them, located in Grand Rapids, has its next door restaurant, One Twenty Three Tavern on Uber Eats. For the record Alamo Drafthouse does not list popcorn for delivery, but Studio Movie Grill only lists gourmet popcorn, which I’m not sure what that implies, but still. Also, Celebration Cinema is offering popcorn either via a bucket for $11, or a party bag for $25.

CHECK OUT VIRTUAL CINEMAS

Remember how I talked about the Coolidge Corner Theatre? Well, turns out that in place of showing movies physically, they are providing streaming routes for select titles. The theatre’s website provides a section where you can look at films and potentially purchase them for personal viewing. Some notable titles include “The Whistlers,” a heist drama from director Corneliu Porumboiu. “Fantastic Fungi,” a documentary about the mycelium community. And this even gives the opportunity to watch the Cannes-winning film “Bacurau.” If you are also interested, be sure to check out “Best of CatVideoFest,” and the content of this kind is available for the first time outside theaters. Purchasing these films helps support the Coolidge organization stay afloat during this dark time. Other theaters are diving into the virtual realm too like the recently mentioned Music Box, Anthology Film Archives in New York, and even chains like Alamo Drafthouse are getting in on this. But of course, if they don’t have your movie of choice, there’s always Netflix, Prime, Hulu, or my favorite way to view a movie at home, physical media!

If you know of any other ways to support movie theaters while their doors are closed, feel free to list them in comments below! What have you been specifically doing to support closed movie theaters right now? Is there a movie theater that is still open in your area? Was it a drive-in? Let me know down below! Thanks for reading this post! Given how Scene Before is your place to read all things movies during the apocalypse, why not give the blog a follow or its Facebook page a like? You won’t regret it! As far as my reviews go, I do want to give an update on one movie in particular, and that is “My Spy.” Just recently, it was announced that the movie is going directly to Prime Video, I have decided that I will still talk about it, given how I already saw it at a free screening in January, and since this is a film that has been screened in theaters before under a distributor originally intending to put it out in theaters, I am planning on counting it towards my end of the year top best and worst movies lists. Until then, be sure to follow Scene Before either with an email or WordPress account so you can stay tuned for more great content! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Avengers: Endgame Ticket Buying Insanity

Posted on by SceneBefore

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Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! In case you hate reading post titles and/or their implications, tickets for “Avengers: Endgame” have officially gone on sale this week! Several sources were suggesting that they would go on sale April 2, and whaddya know? Those sources cannot be denied! Now if you’re curious, I actually already snagged my tickets, but it wasn’t easy. I had to push people out of the way! I had to knock over an old lady who wanted to go see the film with her grandchildren when it came out! I was basically a maniac.

OK, no, not really, in the age of the Internet, that would almost be unlikely.

Nevertheless, the process of buying tickets for “Avengers: Endgame” was insane. When seeing “Star Wars Episode VII,” it was easy because I originally bought tickets for a week and a half after it came out, and I managed to snag some for opening weekend as well inside a less than popular theater because someone I knew wanted to see it right away. I also saw a few more “Star Wars” films after that and while I managed to find myself in a scenario where lots of people were buying tickets, I had little to no trouble actually getting them. With this upcoming “Avengers” movie, I knew getting tickets was going to be competitive, but I did not think it would be insane.

I don’t know what exactly happened, but when “Infinity War” was coming out, I was able to browse through movie theater and third party websites with ease, allowing me to have a critical thought process on where exactly I wanted to see the movie. This year however, I was originally planning on going to see “Avengers: Endgame” at the AMC Assembly Row 12, because it’s on the way home from school and I can meet my dad there. That did not work out.

I went on multiple sites to get tickets. AMC, Fandango, Atom Tickets, and Movietickets.com. All of my attempts to get tickets from those sites ended with failure. I start searching times at other nearby theatres. I eventually notice that one theater is missing from my Google list. Specifically, Showcase Cinemas de Lux Revere. I decided just for fun, I’d go onto the Showcase Cinemas website, which admittedly, is not a perfect website. It’s not buggy per se, it’s just not something I would call… competent. I search my information through a very confusing process and find a bunch of showtimes listed. I search through one, specifically for 9PM. I call my father and ask if he cares what time I chose, he didn’t. Granted, I didn’t tell him this was a three hour movie (seriously), but based on both of our excitement levels for this film, I don’t think he’d care all too much. So I choose the 9PM time, and I get EXTREMELY lucky by getting not necessarily the last seats, but the last good seats where dad and I can sit together. Movie theater companies, how many times do I have to tell you this? THIS IS WHY I HATE RECLINED SEATING! You get less seats, therefore you have less people getting in, and now the competition to get a seat is fiercer than it has ever been! I wouldn’t mind reserved seating in a case like this, but reclined seating is still on my enemy list. Anyway, we get our seats, we’re a little towards the back, which I don’t mind, because that means seeing the screen is a guarantee. I managed to breeze through the surprisingly simple process of getting my tickets. Now let me tell you what would have happened if I stuck with Fandango.

On Tuesdays, I leave my house at 9:30 to go to school, so I originally thought since it was almost 8:30, why not get tickets when I have the time? When I go to click on my preferred time, I get a rather unexpected screen with a background promoting the movie. On said background, I get some text saying that I have apparently entered a virtual line. O-K??? I thought the purpose of buying tickets online was to avoid ticket lines! Nevertheless, I have entered the line, and I have over fifty minutes until it is “my turn.” I am thinking to myself, “Oh no!” I’m never gonna get tickets! How does someone wait this long and get tickets? Granted, I was not the only one in line, but how long was the line half an hour ago? Why half an hour ago you ask? That is around the time tickets started going on sale. I get down to forty minutes, and this doesn’t seem too bad, I could get my tickets just before leaving my house. We get around to 35 minutes. Time is going by. Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Soon thereafter, I glance at my screen, I now have to wait over an hour! So, essentially, I could either stay home and get an unexcused absence from one of my classes, or go on the train and press my luck there. Here’s the thing however, if I close the tab, I then lose my place in line. I have to pack up my laptop for school, because I do stuff on my laptop while I am out and about. What if I close my laptop? Would I lose my place then? This is really hard! I almost considered going to the theater and buying the tickets physically because the theater I originally wanted to go to is on the way to school. But I also didn’t want to disappoint myself by finding out my preferred screenings were sold out.

Let me put this into perspective, the theater is about 20 minutes away from my house by car. It can also take just a tad longer to get there by public transportation. So basically, if I wanted to by tickets AT THE THEATER LIKE A CAVEMAN, it would probably be quicker and more convenient than staying home in my comfy pants buying tickets through Fandango. I’m just thankful that we have smaller theater chains like Showcase Cinemas, because without them, I probably almost wouldn’t have gotten tickets to see this movie on its opening Thursday! OK, they’re not really THAT small, but you don’t see a lot of them on the west coast.

In fact, I am not alone, because I follow one guy on social media by the name of John Campea, here’s what he has to say.

On the bright side, he is getting to see the movie before it even comes out, but he also wanted the feeling of going to something with an energetic audience. In fact, shortly after the tickets went on sale, he did a five to six hour livestream of his daily YouTube series, “The John Campea Show,” where he talked about it alongside his co-host, Rob Meyer Burnett. As the livestream was going, he was still trying to buy tickets through AMC! Seriously! When is the last time you watched a live sports-related talk show and see someone trying to buy tickets for the Super Bowl?

One of my favorite parts of all of this happens to be the memes, because they are PERFECT.

In fact, I made my own meme about something that’s not quite the same thing as this situation, but it’s close enough.

You’re very welcome, web junkies.

This post is not necessarily meant to be important, it’s almost like a diary entry if you ask me, but let’s be real here. While AMC and other popular movie ticketing websites were in trouble, Fandango definitely had a plan. Fandango didn’t say “error” when you entered their website, you could click your time and press your luck at getting tickets. You just had to wait in line. But why the f*ck should I have to do that?!

THE WHOLE POINT OF ONLINE TICKETING is to conveniently score tickets possibly before anybody else, not having to leave your house, not having to talk to strangers, not having to talk on the phone with Kramer from “Seinfeld,” and NOT WAITING IN A LINE. Congrats, Fandango! Not only did you make me wait in line, but you allowed a bunch of people to apparently CUT ME in line, but now I could have easily compared this experience to going to the box office, except in that case I would actually be allowed to pay in cash! Also, I have an account under you, so thanks very much for disappointing your support base.

I’m not exactly sure how to fix this sort of thing since I don’t deal with IT all that much, but there’s gotta be some way to prepare better. Right? Let me know in the comments, with all of your jargon intact, on how all of these movie ticketing outlets can prepare better for the next big movie.

Thanks for reading this brief, unimportant, almost unnecessary post. This is honestly just me sharing a story that stood out to me recently, and it is also my reminder to you all that I WILL be seeing “Avengers: Endgame” on opening Thursday. As far as the review goes, I will have it up as early as possible. I might stay up Friday into the morning if I have to, but that depends on how much I am going to talk about. Granted, this is a big movie, and I know that someone’s life would ultimately be ruined if spoilers were given away, so I will guarantee no matter what, my review will be spoiler free. Be sure to stay tuned for the end of the month for that! Be sure to follow Scene Before with an email or WordPress account to stay tuned for more great content INCLUDING my “Avengers: Endgame,” or even smaller projects such as my review for “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” which I plan to put up next week. I want to know, do you plan to see “Avengers: Endgame?” And I also want to know, did you have any crazy stories to share about buying tickets? What about for other movies? For movies that are not “Avengers: Endgame,” what crazy ticket-buying stories do you have to share? Let me know down below! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Atom Tickets Holds Break Up With MoviePass Contest

Posted on by SceneBefore

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Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! If you are a movie buff or just like going to the movies or wanted a way to make your moviegoing experience cheaper, one thing you may have done over the past number of months is get yourself a MoviePass card. Now this is something I personally have never done. But I will say it did sound like a good deal. NOTE: Did. The concept is that you can watch one movie in the theater for free each day. Keep in mind, this concept came in 2017, six years after this company was founded and had a more limited structure when it came to going to the movies with this thing. Nevertheless, the concept was to watch a movie a day for $9.95 a month. So it’s basically the same thing as Hulu or Netflix, only you’re subscribed to the opportunity to go to the movies once a day. If you ask me, it’s not a bad deal. But over the months, MoviePass had changes made to their policies. Certain theaters wouldn’t accept MoviePass, you couldn’t see certain movies such as this year’s “Red Sparrow” with MoviePass, the company quietly at one point removed the opportunity to see one movie a day and brought it down to three movies a month. Not only was it three movies a month, but they also made it mandatory to also get iHeartRadio. The unlimited plan was however reinstated, but only doom was to come. There was a point where MoviePass basically burned through money harder and faster than my brain did during the SAT, they introduced surge pricing, you couldn’t see popular films or films in prime time slots without paying extra. Then in July, it only got worse.

MoviePass is owned by Helios and Matheson Analytics, and they filed to raise $1.2 billion in order to keep MoviePass alive. That was just the beginning of the month, specifically July 2nd, because on the 26th of that very month, MoviePass’s stock was at such a low point that the firm was forced to borrow $5 million just to keep business going. Not only that, but they also did a 250 to 1 reverse stock split earlier that same week! So their very low stock artificially went up, but just a week later, it plummeted like that LEGO project your kid has been working so hard on all because the kid’s “stupid sister” thought it would be fun to tear the project apart. The stock at this point sits at less than ten cents! Wait, no no no, that’s too much. It’s sitting at less than nine cents! That’s not truthful enough either? Well, I do have another truth to tell you! The stock for MoviePass just so happens to be sitting at less than eight cents!

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That thing you see above, THAT is an authentic look at MoviePass’s stock right now! Did I also mention there was a point where MoviePass ran out of money so the service ended up crashing? Did I also mention that you can’t now go see big release movies in their first couple of weeks? Sorry, “The Meg,” a shark might have just chomped on you! That shark by the way, was “MoviePass!” I’m honestly gonna be shocked if MoviePass makes it until the end of the year. If they have some miraculous maneuver I don’t know about, I’d love to hear about it. There’s more to say about this and how MoviePass chooses to deal with this sort of thing, but we’re not gonna get into that, instead, let’s talk about another company that has grown in terms of popularity when it comes to going to the movies, Atom Tickets.

Atom Tickets is a service that sells tickets to screenings at movie theaters. So basically, they do the same thing as Fandango or Movietickets.com. I never used Atom’s service, mainly because I actually have a Fandango VIP account, so I’m just utilizing that whenever I can. Although Atom is doing something that I will give them every inch of credit for, and that is this new sweepstakes which is the main topic of this very post. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you… “Atom’s Breakup Sweepstakes!”

There are a number of things to be said about this. Is this going a little overboard about a company dying? Maybe. But there is no denying that this sweepstakes is just plain genius and kind of badass! It almost makes me forgive Atom Tickets for making that over the top and stupid commercial with Anna Faris. I could provide a link to it, but for the sake of the world’s sanity, I’m not going to.

How the contest works is that you have to be a legal resident of the United States, although if you’re in Rhode Island, Puerto Rico, or other US territories, you’re unfortunately not eligible. You must enter by August 31st at 11:59PM PST, either on Twitter or through a handwritten note with some information related to your name, date of birth, etc. If you choose to enter on Twitter, you must use the hashtags #MOVIEPAST and #ATOMSWEEPS. The winner will receive one free movie ticket a day, and the ticket’s value is at $12 per movie. The approximate retail value of this prize overall comes out to $4,380. What you essentially do is take a picture of you cutting or carving up your MoviePass card for others to see! That. IS GENIUS. This almost reminds me of something that Sprint did earlier this decade, where they have you bring in your wireless bill to a Sprint store and they cut your rate plan in half. I specifically recall commercials of people with chainsaws literally slicing paper.

This sounds like a fantastic deal, because I was actually thinking at one point of signing up for one of MoviePass’s competitors, AMC’s A-List, which I have talked about on here. But I have yet to do that, and I ultimately don’t know when I will. Granted, this summer alone, I’ve gone to see nine movies in the theater thus far. Six of them were at AMC locations. In fact, one time I could have actually used AMC’s A-List deal, because their thing is to provide a maximum of three movies a week, and I did go see three movies in one week at an AMC. But considering that one of my favorite theaters is not owned by AMC, I didn’t want to risk losing any sort of opportunity of going to or supporting that theater. In fact, that theater doesn’t even accept MoviePass so that kind of says something. Although they do accept another MoviePass competitor, Sinemia, but that’s somewhat irrelevant.

Now, I must not forget one thing. There’s something I didn’t mention that is very important. The most important thing you need for this contest, is of course, a MoviePass card. And since I never got a MoviePass subscription, I therefore don’t possess a MoviePass card. But some of you reading this might actually have one, in which case, go nuts, do whatever you want with it. But I’m almost thinking of doing something in particular since I don’t have one. I’m thinking of buying MoviePass.

At this point, it’s possible that maybe I could buy the entire company, but since I’m not stupid, I’m not going to do that. What I’m thinking of doing is getting a MoviePass card, that way I can receive it in the mail, open up whatever container it comes in, grab my scissors, and cut it up just so I can enter the contest! I mentioned earlier that MoviePass costs $9.95 per month. That’s for the “movie a day” plan if that’s even a thing anymore. But they also have a cheaper plan worth $7.95 per month, which came about from the recently mentioned “three movies a month” thing MoviePass did at one point! Since MoviePass in terms of value is probably worthless at this point, I might as well go with the worthless price and pay the $7.95 deal! Although then again, it also says I can cancel at anytime, so whaddya know?

One thing to also consider is that this contest already started on July 31st, and it ends on August 31st at 11:59 PM on the Pacific coast. One thing I asked myself was this: How long does it take for a MoviePass card to arrive? According to their website, it should arrive around 7 to 10 business days after you order. So I’ve got plenty of time! Right now it’s August 5th! August 31st is 26 days away! Sorry MoviePass, but your business days are also might help Atom’s business days!

Part of me can’t believe I’m saying this, but IF MoviePass goes under, I might talk about them on here once again. In all seriousness, they had a GREAT idea, but it was poorly executed business-wise. Part of me somewhat regrets not getting them, but at the same time, I also feel proud of myself because of some of the things they’ve done. MoviePass probably has very little time left as a company, so if they’re going to go under, I don’t know when such a thing will exactly happen. It might be in the next couple of days, weeks, maybe even a month from now. But if I were you, if you think MoviePass is not worth having anymore, I wouldn’t PASS up this Atom Tickets opportunity. Thanks for reading this post! If you want the official rules and guidelines regarding this sweepstakes, I’ll provide a link down below for you to read, and in all seriousness, whether or not you like MoviePass, you have to admit, this contest is just absolutely brilliant. Moving away from MoviePass and Atom Tickets, I would like to remind everyone reading this Scene Before post that this site has its own Facebook Page! There’s a link for it below, please click on it, like it, follow it, do whatever you do. Also be sure to follow me here on Scene Before through a WordPress account or an email that way you can stay tuned for more great content! I want to know, are you going to be entering this Atom Tickets contest? Or, if you had MoviePass, tell me what you like or don’t like about it. Let me know down below! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

ATOM TICKETS SWEEPSTAKES: https://www.atomtickets.com/promotions/moviepass-breakup-sweepsteaks

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