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PLS I NEED INFORMATION ON HOW TO WRITE A COMPLETE BUSINESS PLAN. I AM ABOUT TO OPEN A 5SCREEN THEATER AND NED ALL THE ADVCIE I COULD GET. I DONT EVEN KNOW THE BEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE PER SCREEN BUT HOPING TO READ MORE POST AND LEARN. ALSO LOOKING FOR A PARTNER WHO WOULD PROVIE THE TECHNICALITY.

Justintega,

Thanks for joining us on the board. I'm a newbie myself but I've found this site to be an invaluable resource when it comes to the 'biz'. I'm currently halfway through my own business plan for a 1-screen in Toledo, OH that should be up and running in a few months.

My suggestion is visit the SBA website. This is the Small Business Association and they are really supportive when it comes to something new, exciting and beneficial to the community. They'll be real with you though, and ask you tough and probing questions. That's good, cause the loan officer at the bank will do the same thing... and then some.

Also contact your local SCORE office. This is a non-profit group composed of retired executives. They will help you with your business plan along the way. Word of warning, contact them with purpose. Don't just go to them and say "I wanna start a theater.". Go to them and say "I'm interested in purchasing/leasing Building X for use as a theater and this is how I plan on making it work. Can you help me translate that into a form that would be understandable to a Loan officer?"

Another good source of info is your local Chamber of Commerce. They're rough too, but fair. These are existing business owners dedicated on promoting small business in their area.

I hope this helps. If there's anything else I can do to help, let me know.

-Dustin

Justin,

The suggestions above are all good. Not to be harsh, but given your post, I'd make sure to find a good proofreader. Misspelled words, poor grammar, all caps, and incomplete sentences all spell disaster if you give them to a bank.

I would get software like business plan pro. I would also meet with some local film bookers who can provide you market numbers if they have access to RENTTRAK

Here is a site with an outline, just fill in your stuff: www.bplans.com/movie_theater_business_pl...utive_summary_fc.cfm

While the link provided above might give you a "fill-in-the-blank" business plan, you don't learn a damn thing through the process. It took me 16 months of research, working with the SBA and SCORE to develop my business plan. Doing the work yourself, creating the spreadsheets formulas yourself, calculating the profit and loss statements, cash flow projections, etc. with raw data you've developed, derived,and researched - can't be duplicated with a "fill-in-the-blank" business plan.

I had my OWN ideas of what I thought the bankers wanted to see, and wrote my own business plan. After failing to win the hearts of any bankers, I turned to SCORE. My SCORE counselor was an old dried up grump (but knew his stuff) who literally and physically ripped my business plan to shreds. He handed it back to me and said, "You asked for my help... now go back and do what I told you - NOT what you think will work." I was pissed, but I did it anyway. Took it back to him for review, and he did it again. After the third re-write, he said I was ready to approach the SMALL TOWN local banks, not the national corporate banks. Honestly, one phone call "cold-call" to the local bank I'd never stepped foot in, and they requested a meeting with me to review my loan request and business plan. Had one 45 minute meeting with them on a Friday morning and he said he'd talk it over with his board of directors. He called back the following Tuesday with a loan approval for $400k.

All of the research, income data, etc. I "researched" ended up being WRONG. Once we were actually up and running, we were actually generating less than half of what we thought we would. We ended up re-writing the business plan (for our own guide - not the banks), and plugging in the real data we were seeing, and adjusted our growth and cash flow projections from there.

Getting ready to do the whole thing again this summer, as we have a $200k expansion to our building planned this fall, and looking 18 months out for conversion to digital projection.

HI thanks, very informative; I was thinking I should start putting numbers into a Quickbooks format;
Mind if I ask:
if you are sole proprietor (LLC)? S-Corp?
Do you have a Board?
Do you have shareholders?
How many shows per day do you run -What hours are you open?
what number of people are you hoping to get for each?
How many other people did you need at first to start ? (Maybe that's too detailed).
Other personal stuff you may not want to share: What kind of your personal capital did you need ?
Did you buy anything personally and 'sell' to your company, or just have the company 'buy'?
Did you have a Lawyer and accountant to start?
What 'cash register system' (POS) do you use - I will check that Forum - I guess you have Debit/Credit cards, too? New cellphone technology recognition, yet?

have you seen these wall mount screens (100 ") at Best Buy? www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?_dyncha...ll+Categories&ks=960

Sharyn....
MY wife and I formed an LLC, which basically separates us from the theatre, though only in a liability standpoint. We operate our theatre as a "dba" through the LLC. There are only two members of the LLC - me and her.

Since we are a drive-in... we're kind of a different animal than your typical indoor theatre. We are seasonal, first run, running only one set of shows each night.

We keep theatre finances and personal finances completely separate - never co-mingling the two.

Lawyers and accountants.... we have both. The accountant is alot more helpful than the attorney.

Even though we purchased everything and financed everything for the theatre through the LLC, we were still required to "personally guarantee" everything. So basically we put our business and home on the line to get this thing up and running.

POS or Cash registers? We started out with cheap "Office Max" registers, moved up to a little better machines two years ago, and this winter we're converting everything to POS stations. We focus more on our kitchen - so we're leaning to something more suited for a fast-food / counter service establishment.

It's been eight years since we started this thing, and there have been plenty of ups and downs. We were profitable after 4 years, but didn't "cashflow" until about 6 years. It'll be paid for in 1 1/2 years, so it should be smooth sailing from there. We do have digital projection coming up very soon, and that will be just another wrench to throw in the pot.

Thank you all for your support. One year later my plan is almost complete, yea it took that long. Well,its only lacking a major component my investors would not look at me without. A technical and experienced management team in the cinema industry. Would highly appreciate any bright ideas. I am establishing in a country where that might be lacking or most alredy employed. Nigeria

Congratulations on compleating your plan. That is the hardest part I think. I have been working on mine for a almost a year as well. Its difficult to obtain all the information you need, its a very hush hush business. I have received tons of tips and information from theaters that I contacted the owners and hung out with for a bit.The key is going to places that you wont be in competition with and they are more helpful. My local crappy theater wouldnt give me jack. Just a suggestion I hope it works out for you!

Brandy

Thanks Brandy, you are very right and thats a nice suggestion. ''The key is
going to places that you wont
be in competition with and they
are more helpful''.
Next step for me is getting an experienced manager which is lacking in my region. We have just3chains in my country with not more than 20 centers.
Goodluck with your plans. Would hope for updates. Thanks again

My loan officer is asking for a Pro Forma. I understand what this is, but is there a template or anything I can go by for a theater, rather than a "just anything" type of business? I mean, there are other things you would purchase or need for a theater rather than a convenience store, per se. Or really, is he just talking about income (ticket and concession income) against expense (payroll, utilities, taxes, etc.)? How do I know exactly, when considering a theater, what I need to itemize on my ProForma?

Any suggestions or ideas on how to bring this form together is greatly appreciated. I'm totally clueless, it's sad to say, but am determined to make this work!

First of all search this on ehow.com ''How to Prepare Pro Forma
Financial Statements for a
Business Plan'' or just google it and locate the link from ehow. It would answer some questions and its a bit helpful.
Yea,a general financial projection, like you said, you need revenue against expenses and all,shareholder equity...There are some publicly quoted theatres with balance sheets on the internet but the information didn't do much good to me. You might need a template.
Well,since we have lots of cinema owners here you are at the right place. Open another forum so you could get direct attention. Would see what i could get for you.

justintega wrote:
I can help with the business planning and pro forma. My contact info is on my signature line.

Barry mentioned that his sales projections were wrong from his business plan and he only generated 50% after that. Has anyone hired a company to do a market analysis for a new theater? I'm writing my plan and my projections are based on feedback from these forums, i'd really like to get a professional second opinion.

Barry - would you mind sharing some of your mistakes in sales projections?