The price of a movie is going to go up, again.
Regal Cinemas (RGC), one of the largest movie theater chains in the United States, is hoping you might.
The company will experiment with charging more for tickets during peak movie times and less at times when attendance tends to be lighter.
Think of it as Uber-style surge pricing, but for movies.
Regal, partnering with the online ticket service and app Atom Tickets, will try it in several markets next year.
Regal CEO Amy Miles didn't say how many theaters would try it, what the prices would be or whether Regal might use such a model to charge different prices for hits and duds.
But the new pricing plan, if successful, could be just what theater chains need. Shares of Regal, competitors AMC (AMC), Cinemark (CNK), and big screen operator IMAX (IMAX) have all fallen this year because of poor box office sales.
There's a big debate about whether the high cost of tickets -- not to mention popcorn, soda and other concession stand goodies -- are the industry's biggest problem.
That might be part of it, and it's the reason another company has recently launched a service called MoviePass that lets people see as many movies as they want for a monthly subscription. In other words, Netflix for movie theaters.
The big chains are cautiously embracing it. Miles said in an earnings conference call with analysts Tuesday that Regal is happy to sell tickets to MoviePass at full price, and MoviePass can then offer those tickets to its customers at whatever price it wants.
But Miles ruled out any partnership that would give MoviePass access to lower-priced tickets.
"We will take a wait-and-see approach and we're going to continue to enjoy the benefits of the full priced movie tickets that we're receiving for all MoviePass customers," Miles said. "What we will not entertain is the discounted ticket arrangement or any participation in our concession sales as part of the arrangement."
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/26/media/regal-cinemas-dynamic-pricing/index.html
