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Larger theatres always have matinees every day and even run continuously from whatever hour the first show starts. That's great when you have the population but I'm wondering about smaller houses... do you show matinees for the entire Christmas week when you don't normally at other times during the year? We show Weds, Sat, and Sun mats...... I liked the idea of adding the shows. What do you do?

We run two shows (a 2:00 and a 5:00) on Christmas Eve and then starting on Christmas Day through New Year's Day, we have 4 showings per day, adding both a matinee and a 9:00 show to our regular weekday schedule. These added showings make the weekdays as busy as week ends depending of course on the films,with Christmas Day being the slowest.

Matinees during the week between Christmas and New Years can and often are huge. If we have a family show, and we always try to have one... those matinees can be packed every day. I only run one matinee show at 1:00 PM, then reopen again in the evening. If we have four or five hundred people in for the matinee we need the down time to get the theatre cleaned for the evening show.

Our Christmas Matinees are incredibly busy. We offer FREE matinees for three movies. The seats fill up fast! Does anyone else offer FREE matinee tickets for the holidays?

DJ
When do you run these FREE matinees...on Christmas day or when? Certainly you don't do it daily during the Christmas to New Years week. That is one of if not THE most profitable weeks of the year. Why would anyone want to give away that week? I'm very curious when and how you do this. What do you run?

We run these FREE matinees on Saturday and Sunday between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. We still show the regular films as well, but give everyone a chance to see some classic kid films that they may have missed. The goodwill in the community generated by this is priceless. Local businesses help support viewings of, say, IRON GIANT, or the like...