Enjoy The Film

It’s 9am on a Sunday morning and we have been summoned for a staff meeting. Gathering up students at that time is only possible through threats; they work but most turn up half an hour late under protest. I work two days a week at the cinema on top of my five days for a full time job, so an extra two hours on a Sunday morning is not helpful, especially since I did not get home from last night’s shift till 2am. What would have helped is all the managers being there, at this first meeting too, as a statement. But they don’t have to attend, do they?

The General Manager is prodded about the sales figures and admits it’s not going to plan. The cinema is part of a new large shopping mall, built on the belief that firstly standing still is suicide for a town centre and secondly, the town is expanding and local people were not shopping there. But the thinking went too far and the new mall is expected to compete with neighbour towns and larger malls in bigger towns. And it hasn’t worked. The hinterland is disturbingly rich but they are not coming into the town centre and mixing with the riff-raff in the new mall.

The cinema relies on the punters shopping in the town and then making an impulse decision to stay an extra couple of hours (paying the extra car parking fee) and watch a film. Like who does that? By the time you’ve hung around outside numerous women’s fashion shops whilst she tries on clothes that either don’t fit or don’t match her shoes you’ve had enough and it’s time to go back for the football scores.

The scariest clue for the poor “admits” is the almost complete lack of tickets sold for the VIP boxes, complete with their own bar. At the moment it is a complete waste of money. To exacerbate matters at the weekend staff numbers drop (some bother to phone in “sick” some don’t), so there are never enough to open the VIP boxes. Those that just don’t turn up often never come back. Turnover is so high it must also be a drain on the costs. The recent Council scare has meant whatever staff turn up have been piled in to watching the cinema screens for couples humping on the back row and then sharing a fag in the loo. And piracy (apparently this is a hot spot and we are being bribed by FACT with cash if we catch ‘em).

Iron Man could not have come any sooner to bring in desperately needed income for the cinema. It is not a blockbuster but, with so much drivel on the screens (Russell Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall – purrleeeeze!!), it cannot fail to succeed. But the cinema has no hope of reaching its company’s regional average. It is at the whim of the success or failure of the new town centre mall. And it ain’t looking good.