Atom Tickets is ready to give AMC and Cinemark a run for their money with a new subscription service made for movie theaters. The program will still depend on the ticketing website’s technology but will allow users to create customized subscription services. No theaters have signed on yet as the company is planning to pitch the idea, termed Atom Movie Access, at this year’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas.
Atom’s ticketing service has been up and running since 2014, with the goal of making movie-going a more social experience. Through the use of its website and app, customers are able to purchase tickets and invite their friends to specified times on various social media platforms. The company aims to integrate the subscription service into its app as well so users are able to buy tickets through their customized subscription and reserve seats ahead of time.
In an interview with Variety, Atom Tickets Chairman Matthew Bakal stated, “our goal is to be a great partner that provides technology that enables exhibitors to create their own subscription programs.” With companies like AMC and Cinemark creating more personalized subscription services, Atom hopes for their service to be more beneficial to smaller theater chains. Bakal added, “There are a lot of smaller, regional circuits that would love to have subscription plans, but don’t have the technology to build it themselves. That’s where we come in.” Pricing for the service is yet to be shared with the public, but Bakal has stated that it will be, “no big cost.”
This news also comes in the wake of MoviePass and Sinemia’s failing programs. The former was the first major program to introduce the idea of a subscription service for moviegoers, allowing users the opportunity to see a movie a day for $10 a month. The plan ended up sinking the company, causing them to lose millions of dollars and plummet its parent company’s stock price, but it opened up the playing field for other movie-related companies to take a swing at subscription services.
A couple major theater chains have learned from MoviePass and Sinemia’s mistakes. One of the more recent subscription services came from the largest cinema chain in the United States, AMC and their A-List program, which built upon their old AMC Stubs program by adding in reserved seating, the opportunity to reserve IMAX and 3D tickets, and eligibility for concession discounts. These additions have proved far more appealing to consumers and have benefited the theater chain as well, with subscriptions skyrocketing past predicted projections from its initial rollout in June 2018. Atom’s service simply wants to serve as a partner for smaller theaters to, hopefully, help them stay afloat in the ever-evolving movie-going experience.
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Source: Variety
