Milton Keynes residents, hoping for discount movie tickets at a no-frills theatre, are out of luck: Easycinema has shut its doors. 

The brainchild of Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Easycinema was one of several businesses to follow the Easyjet model - no luxuries, but low low prices. Other splinter businesses include rental cars, busses and hotels.

Easycinema was brought down by two factors - high rents in the Milton Keynes area, and studio muscle. Distributors refused to book first-run movies in the theatre because they claimed it would devalue the tickets.

Proof, again, that the movie business is not like other businesses. If the arrangement is the same in Britain as it is here, then of course distributors would balk - they get their money from ticket sales, while the theatre gets its money from its no-frills popcorn and soda. Easycinema was charging as low as 20p (35 cents) for tickets. It’s a no-win for the moguls.

Studios will sometimes allow a discount on tickets if it brings in more people, enough to compensate for the lower price. Many theatres have a “dollar night” on Tuesday, which would otherwise be the slowest night of the week. But that discount, that’s just crazy.

Besides, what frills are left in the theatre business to remove? Was Easycinema a bring-your-own-chair theatre? Did they turn off the projector bulb and invite viewers to just stare into the lens? Theatres hire teenagers at subminimum wages already. Maybe they didn’t run the heaters on cold nights.

Well, another noble experiment fails; ownership of the theatre reverts to the Odeon company, life goes on. At higher rates.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 3:04 am and is filed under General, Motion Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.