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having trouble writing my business plan have a couple of books but none of them really help me with setting up my theaters business plan. Any advice or help? all of you guys rock by the way.you have been really great.

I'm going through exactly the same thing you are right now- there are extremely limited resources for movie theater business plans. However, the closest thing I've found is this:
http://www.125aday.com/books/229/business-plan-movie-theater.cfm

It's still fairly generic, but at least it provides you a template to just change what is already there. The included spreadsheet is worth the price itself. We still have to do the legwork like finding out how much concessions cost, estimate electricity, figure out how much to pay employees, etc., which for me, is definitely the hardest part. The people on this forum ARE the best for help, but for whatever reason, posting exact prices seems to be taboo. Calling suppliers and posing as an already established theater owner is the only way I've been able to get pricing.

I'm combining this with software called Business Plan Pro 2004 from Palo Alto Software and between the two, we can come up with a killer business plan.

You'll also need to find a CPA or accountant to get information on taxes, determining what type of corporation to set up, payroll, etc. It's frustrating because we're trying to get money for a theater, but in order to even get started, it takes money! Classic catch-22 situation. I guess that's why credit cards were invented.

I've been told that I'm being too picky on pricing. I'm trying to calculate everything, down to the price of hand soap and vacuum cleaner bags, but I think a more generic cost might be sufficient for the banks. Maybe someone who has gone through this already has some advice on this?

Supercine 22 did you get my e-mails about business plan were they helpful let meknow if you need more info.

Phil

yes thanks they were.

Phil, would you mind sharing your info? Thanks!

Look's intresting

Just e-mail me and will get out what I have!

How can you get a good projection for attendance for a business plan

anyone have an idea related to what supercine asked about the attendance projections. im having the same problem.
thanks
B

I'm taking a business course and doing an independent theatre in Halifax, NS as my project. What I did was estimate what i think is the catchement area for the theatre (ie.e. where people would come from to go the theatre) then multiply this by the average per capita movie attendance for the area. This gives you the total market for movies in your area. Then you can determine your market share by multiply the total market by the percentage of that market that you will make up. Ie.e. if you are one of five screens in the area i would assume I have 20% of the market. And then you can apply upward or downward pressures on that number based on your marketing ability and other factors that will differentiate you from the competition.

Here in Nova Scotia the attendance per capita per year figure (for the province) was available from Statistics Canada. I am sure there is something similar from the U.S. census or some other gov agency. Also total expenditure on film tickets can by used to estimate average spending on films.

Cheers

Im also working on a business plan, I already own a single screen but im working on building an 8 or 9 in a rapidly growing area with 20k+people within 15 miles. So any info is greatly appreciated.

TBoshard wrote:
8 or 9 screens in an area with 20k people is "overscreening". Based on the average of 5k per screen 4 screens would be plenty.

Sorry, I meant 20k in the city itself. but within 15 miles theres around 500k people.

I have seven screens in a town population of 7500-total population in entire county is 30000-If you are going to build and be first run seven screens is the minimum I would want. If your base city population is twenty thousand you will want the 8-9 screens that you suggested.

I agree with Narrow Gauge. There are 8-plexes in my area in towns of 12,000 or so that seem to work fine.

Why it works? all at one theater and owned by one.

It would NOT work to have 2 theaters with 4 screens each.