Thanks to the folks at Star City Scene I see that the Rococo Theatre is for sale for a cool $7.9 million. Is anybody surprised?
More interestingly, they've also started the rumor that Lincoln's Douglas Theatres screens have been sold to Marcus Theatres. If true -- and since there's pretty much zero evidence to support the rumor at this point, that is a big if -- I wonder if it could signal the beginning of the end for Lincoln's protectionist movie theater policies?
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
Surprised? Not really. I’m sure that’s one of the more difficult businesses in town to run and keep profitable.
If you dig through that horribly cluttered message board you can find where the rumor started and see it came from a source of news and information here in Lincoln.
OOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo I hope they get a new opening vid cuz the current one is a bit worn out.
I don’t know how it can’t be profitable. My wife and I saw a matinee, shared a popcorn and a large drink, and dropped more than $20. And for that, I had the privilege of watching commercials. At the risk of sounding like a crabby old man, I can simply wait 12 weeks and buy a DVD for $20 and see the movie as many times as I want forever.
That industry needs to do some work to stay viable.
I was referring to The Rococco having problems. Yes, the movie theatres are a different matter.
I see they are willing to lease the space for $25,000 a month. Youch! No wonder they are selling it.
Booking a sold-out show three times a year (or whatever the infrequency is) can’t possibly cover their costs.
I can’t imagine someone spending $7.9 million on it and ever recovering their costs. That said, however, it could be one of the best performance spaces in the Midwest if managed properly. Whether or not it would be profitable, I don’t know.
I don’t know how they do it either. The contracts they have to agree to to get the movies are draconian at best. My wife is an asst. manager at one of the theaters here in Lincoln, and has been elsewhere too-the movie companies are doing theater owners no favors. They get guaranteed revenue regardless of if people are watching movies or not by forcing theaters to show it X times for X long until Y amount is recouped-holding up the theater from showing other things. Ticket prices are not that bad in Lincoln. Most out of staters can’t believe that it’s as low as it is compared to Texas, either coasts, or most major cities.
KIM as well that the City Council is the one to thank for the theater policy. The owner of Douglas would be a fool not to take them up on their largess, as a business decision. I don’t agree with it either, but its been voted on before and the current city council seems to be in no hurry to get rid of it.
There have been a lot of early AM tours that required the lobby and auditoriums to be ‘dog and ponied’. Drove my wife nuts because she has to tell 15-16 year olds to do cleaning things that usually are done a couple of times a week again, but doesn’t have a reason either. In any case the Marcus theaters site press releases and investor info doesn’t say anything about it.
Some of those commercials on the reels are in the contract as well-no show commercials, no show movie.
*shrug*
LJS responds
I’m quick to point out flaws with the LJS, so in fairness I have to tell you I love the new business blog and the “comings and goings” list in the paper each week.
its official now
http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/03/26/news/business/doc47eabeb292913304806844.txt
Share your thoughts with the community.
Commenting is no longer permitted on this post.