Is it an essential part of the moviegoing experience, or a complete pain in the ass? The pre-show is something of a cinematic flashpoint.
Sure, we all love the trailers, right? And those up-front ads do serve a useful purpose. They mean you don’t have to rush in like a demented animal because your significant other wasn’t capable of carrying out basic maths around the time they take to get ready to go out, and the concept of travel time.
However, it does sting a bit, having to sit through the same ads you are forced to endure at home when you have paid a premium for your movie ticket. After all, when you have paid for the ad-free streaming at home, you don’t have to deal with this.
At a time when cinema is acutely feeling the threat from various other media, is any increase in this pre-show a step too far?
Somebody needs to tell AMC, Regal and Cinemark then. The three of them have decided you need more ads, and movie studios are not happy about it.
They have decided that there will be more non-trailer commercials before a film’s actual start, meaning cinema pre-show will increase from around 20 minutes to just over 30 minutes.
According to a report in Deadline, AMC will continue to add this information to their booking system, listings, and onto the tickets themselves, warning “please allow 25-30 extra minutes for trailers and additional content before the movie starts”.
Audiences will, of course, continue to do what they like. The report details an experiment to measure pre-show attendance during a screening of 28 Years Later. The experiment found that only 20% of the audience had arrived at showtime start. 70% were in their seats around the 12-minute mark, but the 100% was only hit just as the opening credits rolled.
My personal rule of thumb is that commercials are optional, but the trailers are part of the experience, and as a movie geek I want to be there for those.
This wouldn’t be an issue for studios if everyone were like that, but they aren’t, and studios are worried because they see in-house trailers as the biggest and most influential form of marketing.
AMC chief Adam Aron has had this to say:
“With the box office as weak as it was back in February when we made the decision, we could no longer afford to pass up the funds that we were offered to do now what has become standard practice by our largest competitors for more than five years. The alternative to take in the same monies Cinemark and Regal have been getting for years would have been to raise our ticket prices substantially – which would not have generated press coverage but certainly would have been unpopular with our guests.”
So, how much is just too much? Theaters have to make a living, and it is up to us when we actually walk in, right?
