Times on Experience Economy and Digital Cinema in the UK
This post is over two month late in coming, but thanks to the truely stellar blog Digital Cinema Matters I came across this article in the London Times. If there were a Featured Blog on The Second Sight (and there is), Digital Cinema Matters is in a class by itself. Pilgrims commentary on this article is excellent. I would add that my hunch is that gaming in theaters as alternative content is a perfect fusion of the game generations demand for hyper realism and an example of a potentially manifest experience economy vis-avis the Multiplex.
Ch-ch-changes are on the way to a screen near you - Sunday Times - Times Online
Excerpts:
At seven Vue cinemas around Britain, youngsters will be able to play the computer game based on the film on the big screen.
I don’t care how good your home-entertainment system is,” said Steve Knibbs, chief operating officer of Vue Entertainment. “Compare that with playing on a 40ft screen.”
- Cinemas have been slow to test such “alternative content”. David Hancock, a senior analyst at Screen Digest, a consultancy, said: “There has not been much high-definition programming produced and content needs to be available in high definition. That’s why the World Cup worked this summer.”
- Gerald Buckle, Odeon’s vice-president of business affairs, reports that screenings of World Cup matches at some of its cinemas doubled the average customer numbers it would expect from normal film usage.
- “Our average occupancy for film screenings is 10% to 15% across the year. The World Cup screenings had occupancy levels of about 30%,” he said.
- But there are drawbacks. Buckle points out that big-ticket events, such as the World Cup or rock concerts (David Bowie is among those to have had their shows beamed live into cinemas) do not come along very often, so the benefits are minimal, particularly given the amount of effort that goes into marketing the screenings.
