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Was just wondering the general concensus on rates for on-screen advertising
We currently get 60.00 per mo per advertiser
No setup charge for slide
I built our own system with a Duchane digital projector,and Power Point for presentation software.

Your system is very ahead of the curve. Just make sure that you sell enough advertising to pay for those damn video projector lamps. I'm guessing they will last you 3-6 months and cost $300 to replace.

Here at the Rialto we eschew on-screen advertising. We hold our nose up in the air and sniff. Of course we are giving up on potential revenue, but were sticking to our esthetic morals damn it.

I figure that if I ever did on-screen advertising, I would use a high end video projector and run very artful aerial video of our local countryside with nice mood music and then every now and then a tasteful PBS style announcer with a nice graphic would say that this lovely presentation was being brought to you by the fine folks down at Reameplease Ford. But Ky is so anti advertising that I will never have to test my morals or my aesthetic sense. That's all right; I didn't need a new Ford Focus anyway.



[This message has been edited by Large (edited April 27, 2002).]

The consensus has been divided. I know a guy with an 8 screen who pays for his new pick up with adverts and others who simply don't want to do it. I'd do it. How hard was it to generate the power point slides?

And I'm with large: I'd really prefer the video proijector.

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Mike Hurley
www.bigscreenbiz.com

Mike
Creating powepoint is easy and thats what I am planning on doing, you can run really as many videoprojectors off on computer (if you wire it up that way)
depending on how fancy you want it to be you could create a 40 slide presentation in a few hours.
We do things like this with my marketing company as well. the biggest cost is the projectors and lamps are more than slide projectors. But much easier to deal with.
In fact people can e-mail the information(pictures etc) to us and we create the show and e-mail back. But really anyone can do it.

Mike1
Power point is very easy to learn.Just about any graphic can be imported for use. I use some of our clients web pages for their advertising slide. You can basically pick themright off the internet and use them. There are a lot of cute tricks you can also do, such as inserting animated clip art or digital movie clips. A digital still camera is a big help for getting photos also

Video projector with Power Point would be the way to go....if money was no concern.....but!
Mike I think you said you have a three screen, and I think you are missing an important opportunity to increase revenues without sacrificing the quality of your presentation. But if you wait until you can plop down 3 to 6K for a projector and computers, learn a new software application, you could find yourself behind the curve.
I bought Kodak slide projectors, and Corel Draw. I draw the slides, email them to a place to have them imaged, and sell the ads for $250/quarter. I have a three screen and an am in a very small town, but last year I grossed over 20K in additional revenue.
So I think I present my shows with the Film done Right concept, I keep concession prices " Family Friendly", have raised my ticket prices twice in 8 years, try to pay my help above poverty level. The thing is, the utility company, insurance company, concession supplier, film distributor...list goes on....has a different view. They increase prices lowering my bottom line.
I get really tired of hearing projectionist wannabees say how the ads ruin the presentation, let these guys plop down a cool million to build a theatre from scratch and see if they have the same thoughts every friday when they scramble to meet payroll after grossing about 4k for the entire week and you are on a 7 day with some guy that doesn't care if you show his product or not.
This business is a labor of love, and anyone that owns or manages a theatre, that hasn't gone in at the back of a show to simply watch the audience's reaction to a particular scene, doesn't understand this love.
Consider the slides, keep your business healthy, and heaven forbid...actually turn a profit, because everyone knows if you sell a ticket for 6 bucks, you keep 5 bucks for yourself.
wow...I may have had too much coffee....
anyway just a thought
lance

I'm feeling like an idiot about this. I agree with you. Slides don't a crappy theatre make. In my book they are mildly uninteresting but any decent artwork can change that and become interesting.

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Mike Hurley
www.bigscreenbiz.com

In our little two screen in Vermont, we run slides on Kodak projectors (made on Power Point)that feature local Vermont trivia and human interest snippets. People love them-there kind of "retro". We sell interspresed local business ads for $150 a month and have no problem keeping them filled. We only do every third slide as an ad and we use our same format as the local trivia slides so that they are consistent and look good. The businesses give us the content and we lay it out. We need this revenue and it connects the local businesses with our theater.