"Look I think we have to pay attention to the extreme drop off in box office. It's real," says Megan Wolpert, executive VP of Spyglass Television when I interviewed: "People can say it's because of the content. People can say it's because of the options. People can say it's because of piracy. Regardless, it's real."
In The Experience Economy, Joseph Pines II and James H. Gilmore spell out how experiences are the fourth economic offering as distinct from services: "Consumers don't want services, financial or otherwise - they want experiences. Consumers dine at theme restaurants such as the Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood, shop at experiential destinations such as Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles or Beursplien in Rotterdam, and vacation at a Disney theme park or other venues that stage a feast of engaging sensations and dramatic stories for them."
Pines and Gilmore continue: "Experiences have always been at the heart of entertainment, from plays and concerts to movies and T V shows. Over the past few decades, however, the number of entertainment options has exploded. Today, the universe has expanded to encompass a vast array of new kinds of experiences, as new technologies encourage whole new genres of experience, such as interactive games, World Wide Web sites, motion-based simulators, 3D movies and virtual reality."
In "Good Morning, Hollywood",Munarriz offers an interesting proposal to theater owners faced with a waning box-office and increased competition from alternative media. Munarriz' suggestion elaborates on this growing trend towards experiential marketing and the ethos of the creative economy. Munarriz writes:
"The studios can deal with the audience shift from theater to DVD. They'll get their money for delivering the content either way. It's the theater chains that are spooked, because their reach begins and ends with the theatrical run. The studios take a generous cut of the box-office take, so theaters have been relying on things like marked-up concessions... I may never understand, however, why concession menus err on the side of boring. I mean, sure, I understand the magic of high-margin wieners, salty snacks, and candy. But what I don't get is how nearsighted an industry can be by not realizing that the whole "dinner and a movie" mindset can be altered in its favor with a more meal-worthy, experience-driven approach to feeding the captive film buffs."
Digital cinema according to most industry spokesmen just might save the theatrical box office. 3D is especially promising for the younger demographic who have been raised with the hyper-realism of entertainment software. In fact, the game generation want to be engaged with their media in a way far
more intense than the boomer's relationship with television.
"I believe we are back," National Association of Theatre Owners president and CEO John Fithian said as he proclaimed the long-awaited arrival of the digital-cinema age at ShoWest this year: "We stand now at the dawn of the biggest technological revolution since the advent of sound. Digital cinema starts right now, in the year 2006, and it couldn't come at a more important time."
Bob Gibbons, Director of Marketing and Communications at Kodak Digital Cinema remarked when I interviewed
him: "you have got to use digital in a way that lets you enhance the
entertainment experience, or changes the entertainment experience, or
ad an incremental entertainment experience, or do something that you
can't do with film; because some of us are convinced that if you simply
put a sign on your door that says, 'I am going to show you this movie
digitally, and by the way I want you to pay more for it.' People in
essence won't pay more for it. If you are just reinventing the wheel
and calling it fire, that is a little foolish."
If theaters ever consistently draw in audiences again, they will do so by offering experiences that viewers just can't have at home.
