Theater reopening? Northern California firm has an app for that

Uncertainty continues to swirl around the U.S. movie theater business as California and other states roll back or delay reopenings as COVID-19 cases mount.

Yet a Solano County-based company that makes preshow content shown on hundreds of screens thinks its new digital tool originally developed to help smaller operators better compete can actually help them get ready to premiere in the pandemic.

Before the Movie produces video advertising and entertainment programming shown on 1,100-plus screens locally and in multiple states, and the fast-growing company was on track for another $30 million-plus revenue year from momentum in the months before the pandemic, according to CEO Corey Tocchini.

But then he quickly realized in March when attendance at customers’ theaters started plummeting that the smartphone-oriented theater sales and marketing platform already in advanced stages of development might help both the company and its cinema customers survive the industry shutdown, which is about to enter its fourth month in California.

“They're implementing measures such as no-touch (ticketing), and that's where our app comes in,” Tocchini said. “We were designing it before COVID.”

Before the Movie’s forthcoming system, set to roll out to the first customers around the end of this month after testing with their point-of-sale systems, would allow moviegoers to research movies, purchase tickets, reserve seats and buy concessions through a smartphone app before they arrived at the theater.

Such “contactless” transactions have joined standard operating procedures at cinemas around the world during the battle against the virus, but theaters already had been headed in that direction in the past few years, offering no-wait reservations of seats, often at a “convenience fee” of $1-$2, which could be add up to 10% or more of a ticket price.

The California Department of Public Health on June 8 published guidelines for movie theaters to take when reopening during the pandemic.

Depending on county health officer approval, that was allowed to start June 12. Among the rules are a reservation system that limits the number of patrons entering the building at once, perhaps scheduling arrival in groups, and assigning seats based on a 6-foot radius between families.

Marin County, already trailing other North Bay locales in business reopenings, on June 26 slowed further return to operation for theaters and other business sectors.

And Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 1 rolled back reopenings for several types of indoor business, including restaurant dining and movie viewing, for three weeks in 19 counties with rapidly rising COVID-19 metrics. From the North Bay on that list are Solano, Marin and Napa counties. Solano in early March had the first community-spread case in the Golden State.

A spike in COVID-19 cases in across several states in the past few weeks has spurred movie studios to push back opening dates into August for “Tenet” and “Mulan,” films hoped to bring back patrons in significant numbers to fill even the lowered capacity before each screen, according to the Wall Street Journal. Share prices for publicly traded theater chains — called “circuits” — have taken a worse hit this year than theme parks, down an average of 60%, compared with 54% for such parks overall, the paper reported.

But beyond the coronavirus crisis, Tocchini hopes to offer theater owners an app that will help build more customer loyalty than is possible through major ticketing services such as Fandango and Atom, which may list other circuits’ theaters first in a search of locations for a title in a search area.

To do that, he’s licensing video trailers, movie and actor information from IMDB and The Movie Database, allowing users to rate trailers and even get push notifications when titles with their favorite actors are releasing.

Patrons after they purchase tickets will be able to see what concessions are available and order them ahead, because the app is plugged into the circuit’s sales system, Tocchini said. Prepackaging concessions is virus protocol being considered as theaters prepare to reopen.

Other content planned to be offered through the app are “The Ferguson Files,” a video series of about 225 interviews Before the Movie has produced with past and current actors, and Playing for Change music videos.

Theater circuits will be able to select what incentives they want to build into their app implementation. For example, patrons could earn points for opening the app, buying concessions or answering trivia questions, redeemable for concessions or merchandise. And “stale notifications” could be sent at certain intervals to encourage users to open the app.

“We've developed marketing automation software built on what the exhibitor wants,” Tocchini said.

Jeff Quackenbush (jquackenbush@busjrnl.com, 707-521-4256) covers wine, construction and real estate.

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