WICHITA — At a time when most businesses are working to bring in more money, Warren Theatres owner Bill Warren is turning it down.
He says he rejected an offer from a national company that represents advertisers to make $450,000 annually in advertising over the next five years. That’s $450,000 net for each year.
“We’re probably one of the only theater companies in the nation that do not do screen advertising in our luxury theaters,” Warren says of places like his Warren Theatre East and Warren Theatre West.
“It was tempting,” he says.
But Warren didn’t want to do it “because I thought it would change the quality and the atmosphere.”
He says he’s turned down the advertising for years. But this year, he was offered a sweetened deal that was harder to pass up.
“We’re a throwback to the old days,” Warren says. “I just think most people in Wichita don’t realize how different these theaters are than if it were a circuit running them.”
He says his business — along with most other theaters nationally — is doing well.
“My business is not really affected by the economy,” Warren says. “We’re more affected by the quality of the movies.”
If anything, he says his business is up thanks to the economy and the fact that more people are finding entertainment here rather than traveling.
Still, $2.25 million is a lot to turn down.
“The money would have been nice,” Warren says, “but, whatever.”
10 Comments
I am happy he turned this down and I hope he continues to do so. But if he ever does do full screen ad’s, He better lower ticket prices a dollar or two. Ya, like that would happen.
@ jdl… I doubt you’d see a discount of that magnitude. The movie distributor gets 80-90% of the face value of each ticket sold for a first run movie. For an $8 ticket the exhibitor gets to keep about $1.20.
I’m glad Bill didn’t go for this.
He should have taken the money if his revenue is based on the “quality” of the movies. Judging from the sh*t that Hollywood is making I’m surprised anyone is going to the movies.
My, what a humanitarian. Of course, with the city funding his business he’s probably not hurting.
Hmmm, but how much money and “breaks” did he get from Wichita for the Old Town location?? The “experience” would be ruined?? City money must spend better.
When I have been at the local drive-in I see ads but only during intermission. I would say that as long as there are no ads DURING the movie it wouldn’t be so bad. Let them run ads and serve food during breaks but not during the feature.
This is classic marketing strategy… “the other guys will make you watch ads, but come on over to Bill’s place and we’ll let you sit and stare at a blank screen til we’re ready to show the film.” The sad thing is that people will respond to this kind of thing and spend money with him because he “boycots” the ads. You notice he did this very publicly, even getting a nod from our dear friend Carrie. He may not show advertising, but he’s sure doing plenty of it around this.
Isn’t a “boycot” what a young male sleeps on? Perhaps the word you were looking for is “boycott”.
Good for you Bill. It’s a private business and you decided to stick with profits from quality service rather than annoying your customers.
I guess that when I look at $450,000 a year for 5 years which comes out to $2,250,000. That amount would have been a nice payback to the city of Wichita. My suggestion Bill is to take the money and pay it forward to help out the Residents of our fair city. With the 1,000’s of people that go to your theater’s you could have helped out other business partners advertise their companies.
Theater advertising is awesome for the companies that use the venue’s. To say “whatever” to 2.25 Million in Revenue that you could have paid back to the city is… Well…
We are in a budget crunch all over our state. Pay us back now instead of later. That $450,000 a year would have paid for a lot of City service’s.
Perhaps you should sell the advertising yourself and collect the $10 million to pay back our City.
That is a Great Idea. I don’t mind watching advertising at a Theater and I am sure that there are 1,000’s like me. Especially if you pay us back the money that you “Borrowed” quickly.