Comments on: Theater owner Bill Warren turns down $2.25 million in advertising

By: randyhare

randyhare — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:55:42 +0000

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.

By: HonestObserver

HonestObserver — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:33:52 +0000

Good for you Bill. It’s a private business and you decided to stick with profits from quality service rather than annoying your customers.

By: jerry

jerry — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:40:14 +0000

Isn’t a “boycot” what a young male sleeps on? Perhaps the word you were looking for is “boycott”.

By: WichitaWordsmith

WichitaWordsmith — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:44:10 +0000

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.

By: bth

bth — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:48:17 +0000

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.

By: cafanter

cafanter — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:15:28 +0000

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.

By: hiphopflipflop

hiphopflipflop — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:54:06 +0000

My, what a humanitarian. Of course, with the city funding his business he’s probably not hurting.

By: DHWest

DHWest — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:17:01 +0000

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.

By: Frank_Lingo

Frank_Lingo — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:19:21 +0000

@ 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.

By: jdl535

jdl535 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:40:02 +0000

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.