AMC To Charge Extra For Desirable Seats
Movie theatres in the United States usually follow a blanket pricing paradigm regarding theatre seat booking. This means, a $23 ticket for the movie Avatar: The Way of Water will allow you to choose any available seat in the theatre.
The largest movie chain in the United States – AMC is about to change this paradigm. AMC Theatres has announced that the prices of movie tickets will now take into account how desirable a seat is. So for example, a seat in the middle will now cost way more than what a seat in the front of the theatre costs.
Three-Tiered Seating Arrangement
AMC Theatres will be dividing the seats in the theatres into three tiers. The most desirable ones – those in the middle will be priced at a “slight premium” while the front row “value” seats will cost less. Seats elsewhere in the theatre will carry standard pricing. AMC says that the standard seats will remain the preferred choice of movie-goers.
AMC Cinemas has termed the arrangement as Sightline and calls it a value-based approach to watching movies. Seats in the mid-center are termed Preferred Sightline while the front-row seats are termed Value Sightline seats and the rest of the seats will now be called Standard Sightline.
AMC has just started rolling out this seating paradigm and it will be implemented across the entire country soon.
Is AMC Going The Broadway Route?
Live theatres like those on Broadway already employ such a seating paradigm – albeit in a revised way. Live Theatres charge more for front-row seats. Movie theatres in other countries already follow a similar position-based ticket pricing.
However, audiences in the United States are usually not accustomed to this pricing structure. The move is surely going to ruffle the feathers of moviegoers.
Moviegoers Are Not Happy
Moviegoers, as expected, are not happy with the move made by AMC Theatres. A Redditor sums up – “My 75-inch OLED TV and 1000-watt sound system are more than enough to let me enjoy a movie from the comfort of my home.” On the other hand, some empathetic people agreed that AMC had done the right thing to boost its revenue.
Theatres are dying and they need to come up with unique solutions to maximize their profits. Others jokingly said that since movie theatres generally remain empty during specific times of the day, one can simply buy the tickets for Value Sightline and move to an empty seat with a better view. Some people likened the move to the recent crackdown on password sharing by Netflix.
Stubs A-List Members Don’t Need To Pay Extra
The monthly membership of AMC – Stubs A-List allows the members to avail of the mid-center seats at no extra cost. Stubs A-List is similar to movie-pass where preferred seating at no extra cost is an added perk.
As of now, AMC’s Sightline will apply only to shows that play after 4 PM.