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We used to be the big fish, having the only theater in town. But now I'm the small fish since my two screen is now in compeating with a new six screen in the next town only twenty five miles away. We can see our patronage beginning to thin. If anyone out there has had to deal with this problem could they let me know how you delt with it. At this point, any suggestion would be of help.

take2:

I have experienced simalar crowding of the marketplace as well, only in my case it was the addition of 4 new multiplexes with a total of 49 screens in less then 18 months, on top of the 30 some screens at 6 other plexes that already existed. Plus we still have 7 single screens in the area as well. This is all in a twenty five mile radius of me.

Tell us a little more about your situation, then we can better comment on it. Are you both on national release? What are your price structures? Do you both have adequate parking facilities? What are the seating capacities of your auditoriums verus theirs? Compare sound and projection? Your population verus theirs. All these things will have a bearing on how well you compete. When you (and we as well) know your weaknesses, then we can better suggest what steps to take to compete taking advantage of your strenghts.

I'm a 100 seat art house surrounded by about 15 Regal screens. I keep going by playing that which they won't. Something i've found effective is to distance myself as far as i can from the corporate movie house image. i keep snack bar cheap and to mostly natural products. pop the popcorn as they walk in the door, make sure myself, or employee, is there after the show if people wanna bitch or discuss the film. hawaiian shirts and jeans as opposed to vest and name tags -- see where i'm going here? i built my place, so i started this way. i have a friend with a first run single screen hard top that just tried something so radical as playing "Ciderhouse Rules". his comment was the different people that came in he had never seen before. tell us more about your demographic.

I'm with Avalon and Roxy. I have never seen a theatre killed off that wasn't run down or tired and ready to go quietly dark. There are endless ways to compete and stand up against competition. You can't be what worked in the past so you need to figure out how to change and adapt. We too personalize the experience so that there's a strong ident with us. I wonder if the bow tie and vest is done on pirpose to make the employees almost like unidentifiable non people that don't really live in the town so there's no anger about the high prices? Chep pop psychology on my part. Clean it up, do good booking, turn on the showmanship, cheer it up, tune up the presentation, advertise... and having asked the question here: follow the advice! Best of luck!

Thanks to all of you who took the time to answer me. I really like the comments put forth by Avalon. I think that its the way to go for me. I like the idea of a local touch. I'm going to give it a try. Being next to a college town should also help. Parking has always been a problem. The public parking lot is about a block away and the spaces around the theatre fill up fast.

Thanks Take2. If you want a better look at how i differ from big boys, ck out my websight. Just keep trying everything, don't ever give up, and know you're not going to hit it every time, or even every 36th time.
Paul http://www.peak.org/~avalon/