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Sophisticated was not meant as 5 th avenue but as knowledgeable.
If you are in an area were there are no theaters for 30-50 miles you might get away with crapy seats .

If you have any decent competition no way will you still be able to survive . The customer won't tolerate it .

Slap is a NYC guy. You can take him out of the city... but not too far. And I say this with all affection. I grew up in the NYC area. Teaneck NJ 5 miles over the GW bridge and we, even as young teens, wandered around the city as if it was a playground. And then it became a different sort of playground as I got older. Anyway.... my point has always been that it is very much easier for a person who has truly lived in a small town to understand the city and next to impossible for a big and even medium market person to understand a small town like Rugby. People from the city: not a chance or a clue. It is demonstrated over and over. They "think" they understand it but it's like a multi millionaire thinking he knows what it is like to be poor. The reality is that these smaller town theatres are holdovers from times past when new seats and the latest projection and sound were affordable. Today they are not. So they need to reinvent themselves and the funding has to be done differently. It will not be done with ticket and popcorn sales. Down the road from me a city guy (Dallas or Houston) flush with oil banking money spent about 6 million restoring a 300 seat single screen. And guess what? It's a single screen!

Thanks I think ???

Standards are standards small town folks have to many options in 2012 to settle for A sub par experience ... Seats are as important as a good picture .

There's a little in there that might cause a guy to wonder..... I say this in all complimentary mode: I drove truck and cab and school bus and was a foot messenger in NYC. I've waited on tables and bar tended. The paths of my ancestors and my family today are worn into the concrete and tar of the city, Hell's Kitchen in particular. But I never feel far from my bones when in the city. There's a part of me that was baked into being by the sound of an elevated train and the air from an open summer window five floors walk up from a red liquor store neon glow above Dyckman Street. But... about forty years of living in a small town teaches also. And that I have in me also. And my point... such as it is... is that if you have done one but not the other I think it's pretty difficult to understand life in a small town. And somehow.. there ought to be a good long reason why in a small town we understand a movie theatre hanging on and want it to make it and have a little faith that a way will be found. And a big city guy just doesn't get how it happened, or what it means. I don't know if we need a long good reason. I have known a lot of the people who keep struggling businesses of all kinds going. That's probably a worldwide human trait; hope, tenacity, and maybe a lack of imagination about how this story ends enough so they keep working it. Who knows. I know that when I find myself watching a game where I don't really care.... I root for the underdog. They may have crappy seats but I'm rooting for them. And one last thing... in small towns you see your neighbors fail and later you get to see them working at the post office or trying something else. So... our cheering them on doesn't just get defined by one failure because we want them to get up and try again. Life in small towns is long and interrelated.

LOL--I never lived in Ny City I grew up on Long Island in a big town and then lived in a small town for nine years ( 6,000 population).I did work in the city for about 5 years and loved that also . You and I might support sub par theaters because we love the movie biz ,patrons will not.
The reason why so many cant afford digital is state of neglect these theaters are in . The slow erosion of customers is due to poor seats , moldy theaters,dirty theaters and smelly theaters.As you know I am looking at theaters to purchase, in the last 4 months I have not seen one nice mom and pop theater for sale..... Nope not one ..... Are there nice ones --sure-- there the ones that can afford digital.

I guess it's back to the age old question, what came first... the chicken or the egg? Or said another way, what comes first... poor ticket sales or dirty, moldy, smelly theaters? Either situation can lead to the other.

I guess Slap is saying that if a theater owner can't afford to upgrade to digital, then his theater must not be "nice". If "nice" is a synonym for "highly profitable", then maybe. With this kind of logic, you might as well subscribe to the idea of "build it and they will come."

You can spend six million dollars to make an old single screen in a small town state-of-the-art. You can make it more plush and luxurious than any theater in your state, but it doesn't mean it will be profitable. In the end it's still in a small town. Small town businesses can work, if you don't expect to get rich. I believe one part of success is not to over-build and not to gold-plate anything that isn't necessary. Does this always work? No, but certainly the opposite doesn't always work either.

I was going to say the same chicken or the egg .

In all these discussions there are exceptions to the rule .

and I thought I felt a kindred NYC soul in Slap. I did. He's from Long Island and I'm from NJ. That would sum it up. Or as we like to say when trying not to put too much truthiness on it... "I'm from the NYC..... area."

I took my daughter to a theatre that's just recently opened. The place is sparkling clean. The seats are as good as they come. The show reflects the perfection you get with a well-installed digital system. Sound was notably excellent.

You'd think this would have been well worth the 10 bucks it cost to get in, or the $6 for a popcorn and $5 for a Coke. Really, the money wasn't such an issue, since I only go out to other peoples' theatres maybe 3 times a year.

For us, it was an inexplicable lack of 'pizazz' that I can't quite put my finger on. There was nothing wrong with the presentation, yet the new auditoriums are disturbingly simple. The concessions are a design seen everywhere, and strategically placed right in your face when you walk in. There were no fewer than 7 kids behind the counter, yet only one of them had a cash drawer open.

The movie aside, there was just something missing, and I still haven't figured it out. Maybe some metal-backed seats would have provided perspective!