cboath, while that is a good breakdown, I think it is a bit shortsighted. With traditional posters, you have ONE poster for X amount of time. With a digital display in place, not only do you have the opportunity of motion posters, but also to pop ads in between posters and to rotate mulitple posters, meaning you need few positions for posters. Now, I am not arguing that the cost isn't very high to go from one to the other, but I believe that there is a lot more to it than simply a 1:1 price ratio of paper poster to computer display. Here is Vegas you are constantly seeing digital displays replacing traditional posters and advertising slots, from huge billboards to small displays in hotels to restaurant menus, more and more are going digital.
In vegas you've gotta compete with casino's and such, too. Different areas have to compete differently. Still, the ability to show multiple posters on a single screen didn't occurr to me. (It was early in the day for me
) Even so, it's still a huge upfront cost. Perhaps the biggest thing I didn't think of was theft. They can fairly easily be protect from the elements (rain/wind), though I don't know how an LCD panel fares in freezing temperatures.
Being in the middle of the country, we're always the last to see things. They typically land on the coasts (NYC/LA) and work their way to the middle. Vegas is a place that's always been ahead of the tech race - least in the 15-20 years (hadn't been their prior).
Price is still the biggest obstacle I see. Look at the threads that pop up here about the price of tickets and snacks (can you say gouge?). There's someone here who's family owns a theatre I think and the common refrain is they barely make anything from tickets so the snacks are that high because that's where they get most of their money. Says that theatres aren't exactly profit machines to me. If switching to an LCD screen system would make me more money, I'd consider it if I were an owner. I don't see them increasing sales that much. If they were going to save me money over paper posters, again, i'm on board. But how long will it take to save any money? Will there be a time that it's more cost effective?
I could be missing something, but the only benefit I see from a theatre owner's perspective is the coolness factor and that I can rotate 20 adds on 4 screens instead of having 20 poster frames outside.
My guess is the BIG SALE to a theatre owner is that the screens can show 3 movie ads, followed by an Old Navy or McDonalds ad - just like IN the theatre being bombarded by a slide show of ads that's 20 minutes long that rotates endlessly untile the previews start, which is 5 more minutes of video commercials then 3-4 trailers before your movie. So ad sales, i guess, is the thing i'm missing.
I HATE being made that it's my obligation to let people advertise to me ad naseum.
