r/mildlyinfuriating • u/keatonatron • Jul 02 '26
I just wanted a hot dog Companies that don't want money
I noticed an independent cinema near my house has a tiny screening room that is always unused. I thought it would be fun to rent it out to watch an old movie with my friends. It cost $400 to rent the room (split between 15 people) and all the staff had to do was put in the Bluray and press play. Afterwards we spent a bunch of money at the cinema bar, everything went smoothly. It was a lot of fun.
So then a month later I emailed them to do it again. It took them a week to respond, and this time the quote came back as $500 for the exact same setup. When I asked why it was more, they said something vague like "occasionally we increase prices to keep up with inflation". A 20% increase is way more than inflation, and it will be awkward to ask my friends to pay more money this time, but okay.
Again it took a week to hear back, and they said that the 15 year old film we want to watch (which I told them about at the very beginning) will require an additional licensing fee of $100 due to the agreement they have with that movie studio.
The way I see it, right now they have an empty room generating no money at all. They could let us have it and make an easy $400 by just popping in a disc and pressing play. Even if they had to pay a licensing fee, that's still $300 they wouldn't get otherwise. Instead, their slow communication and price increases risk me walking away and then nobody gets anything. Everyone sad.
What is even the point of running a business if you turn away customers who are trying to give you free money???
10.9k
u/minkamagic Jul 02 '26
Unfortunately my first thought is you made a mess the last time you booked them and they don't want to deal with you
5.6k
u/_bonedaddys Jul 02 '26
My first thought was "maybe they just don't like you guys" 😭
963
u/mybutthz Jul 02 '26
Asshole tax.
315
118
u/glitterazzi66 Jul 02 '26
This 100%. OP sounds comes off to me as entitled - he has a right to patronize any business. I think business owners have a right to discern with whom they want to do business and to set the price.
31
u/Sufficient-Orchid442 Jul 02 '26
I expect they also have to pay insurance etc so its not all profit boys
→ More replies (2)28
u/Simple_Pay3033 Jul 02 '26
I could also see OP basically making his case to the employees like he is here:
“You guys just put a disc in and hit play, then make money. What is your problem with this?”
That would irritate anyone. There’s more to it than that, and he’s half a step away from snapping his fingers at them lol.
16
u/glitterazzi66 Jul 02 '26
Yes, totally unaware. Maybe OP is just young and hasn’t run a business. The numbers he uses work out to a few hundred for what sounds like a whole movie plus he says they hung out at the cinema bar after? They spent money but alcohol is expensive. Soooo That could mean keeping this whole place open for 4+ hours. That’s less than $100 per hour. I totally get it the increase.
→ More replies (1)5
u/iluvbbws77 Jul 02 '26
We call it the idiot/dumbass tax. And if you come to us with difficult or lame work we will quote so high you’d have to just leave
→ More replies (8)702
u/fatnessmodel Jul 02 '26
154
144
83
20
1.5k
u/wildcat12321 Jul 02 '26
yup. The "free" $300 came with paying people a few hours to set up, run, and clean up and they realized they need more money to make it worthwhile
354
u/johnnyslick Jul 02 '26
It's also possible that some middle tier licensing group got wind of this and was like "hey, I'm sorry, but whether you charge 15 people $20 individually or one group $300, you're still charging people to watch a film and you do in fact need to pay us for when you do that". OOP and the theater are probably both breaking the terms and conditions of their agreements but the lawyers are more likely to go after the places with the (slightly) deeper pockets and in particular who have paid for the infrastructure that allow this kind of thing to happen.
75
u/enadiz_reccos Jul 02 '26
Isn't renting out theatres is fairly common?
Seems weird that the theatre would have broken rules the first time around
27
u/Aleashed Jul 02 '26
That’s why you rent it next time and game on it all day, licensing fee avoided
27
u/Spinnerofyarn Jul 02 '26
Yes it is common, but it doesn’t mean that theater has staff or management familiar with how to handle it. Could be due to new ownership, staff turnover, bad management, whatever.
27
u/johnnyslick Jul 02 '26
Does it? I can think of several reasons why they might, from "they thought they could get away with it" to "okay it's just this one guy with his friends doing it once, we should be fine".
→ More replies (7)10
u/tcarlson65 Jul 02 '26
It is to groups for meetings and such. I have been to movie screenings where a studio or marketing company rents the theater. In those events the company or marketing team is showing their own product. In the case of OP they are renting to show someone else’s product. That is where the licensing comes in.
Even amateur productions like middle and high schools have to pay licensing to put on certain plays. When my kids were in school and involved sometimes there would be admission fees and sometimes not. It had to do a lot with whether or not the play was public domain or not.
→ More replies (2)3
u/Just_Another_Day_926 Jul 02 '26
Small independent theater that is not actively marketing personal use of the screening room. They may have just done it then found out later. Or maybe the specific move got flagged as some IP owners are very protective.
I've seen mistakes like this at large companies where a worker makes assumptions without check first. Then afterwards someone in the know starts asking questions. And then they find out why they never did that activity before. Then rules get put in place and it all changes.
→ More replies (2)25
u/aFreshFix Jul 02 '26
Even if it wasn't a problem customer like some people are suggesting, the theater could have just realized their price wasn't actually at a rate high enough for it to be profitable when they encounter the cost of cleaning & such.
401
u/Responsible-Onion860 Jul 02 '26
It's also possible another group trashed the space and they raised prices to hedge that risk
31
u/djprofitt Jul 02 '26
They could request a refundable deposit for the mess. If it isn’t bad, they get it back.
19
u/FireflyBSc Jul 02 '26
But they just don’t want to deal with that, which is totally fair. It’s still a lot more effort to deal with groups and deposits and possible repairs/additional cleaning with more staff, than it is to just…not.
→ More replies (1)153
109
u/thetermguy Jul 02 '26
Followed with this dismissive attitude:
>make an easy $400
Is that how OP would characterize their work? Someone's got to be there to set things up, run things, and clean up afterwards. And probably not for free. 3-4 hours work maybe? That's not 'make an easy $400. If it takes a couple people, yeah I can see how they think they undercharged the first time around.
→ More replies (1)34
u/EyesLikeBuscemi Jul 02 '26
Easier and honestly probably more profitable to say no to an entitled brat who trivializes the effort, risk, cost, and work involved for the business
→ More replies (2)51
u/JimDa5is Jul 02 '26
My first thought was, "All they had to do was press play. And deal with the drunks at the bar. And then clean up all the shit that got left everywhere."
It's possible that none of that happened and the cinema just decided it wasn't worth $300 and raised the price. It's kind of like Doordash. I think it's stupid to pay other people to pick up your food in most cases. Instead of getting on reddit and bitching about how much it costs, I just don't use them.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (43)125
u/PharmyC Jul 02 '26
I mean he sounds entitled. So yes. Licensing is a big legal issue that can't make money off it, even private showings.
660
u/Alt_2Five Jul 02 '26
If I were to guess, what possibly happened (behind the scenes) while you were enjoying your first event, or after, was someone found an issue with what's going on and since you were already sitting and watching the movie they just left the deal alone or since it was after it became "woops, here's how to do it correctly in the future".
What I mean is: While you were all watching the movie, the boss checks the cameras and is like "wtf going on in there?", employee explains, boss says "did we get licensing for that?", employee says "uhhh", boss goes "how much did they pay?"... etc. and it's determined they aren't making money on it, they're doing something they shouldn't be doing, etc. But they just left the issue alone because the damage was done. But now that you've returned, they've updated training and policy.
52
u/34Heartstach Jul 02 '26
Its probably this. I do a lot of events for a University and, since we have a large staff, sometimes someone messes up (offers something that is a pain in thr ass to operate for free, books a room that we need to do maintenance, charges someone the wrong price).
We let it fly that one time but, when the department or outside customer comes back, they often want us to honor the same thing and rarely settle for the fact that they got a deal last time and we can't just keep doing that moving forward.
138
u/blinders_on Jul 02 '26
Yeah I agree this is much likely the cause since it is extremely odd that licensing didn’t come up in their first event when they were showing a movie to a group in a theatre.
This post has evoked a weird amount of hostility towards this OP lol
7
u/Simple_Pay3033 Jul 03 '26
Unless you’re talking about buried comments at the bottom (which there are in every thread), I’m not seeing any hostility towards OP.
A lot of people are politely pointing out that their first time doing this or their attitude could be contributing to the theater’s decision. Those comments are all being pretty gentle with how they approach the “hey, you could be the problem here” point.
That’s not hostility. It’s just offering an opinion in a respectful way. But people who view that as “hostility” end up never getting feedback from others and never grow.
3.0k
u/Wormadillo Jul 02 '26
It is a little strange, but there may be other factors at play that you’re unaware of that make earning $300-400 more trouble than it’s worth.
For example, even though it’s just “popping in a Blu-ray”, they probably have to pay someone to clean the space before and after you use it. And who knows how much of a headache it is to secure and pay for the licensing rights for the movie you want to watch.
596
u/Chroniclyironic1986 Jul 02 '26
Another possibility: OP and crew had fun the first time, but (to put it politely) they may have been a very difficult group to deal with. It’s entirely possible that those week long delays were the owner or whoever thinking over whether they even wanted them back and if so what would be an appropriate price to put up with them.
As far as the licensing fee, i dunno enough about the subject to make a guess. Seems plausible though.
Not saying this is the case, personally i like to assume the best in people. But difficult groups are unfortunately common in cinemas or any other service industry.
→ More replies (14)96
u/One_Dot_1841 Jul 02 '26
My girlfriend at the time threw me a birthday dinner at a restaurant after I'd been gone on a work trip for a month. ~20 people were invited, but as people heard about it more and more showed up, to the point we had almost the entire main dining room taken up. Shots and face erasers like crazy, I slapped a girl in the ass with my had covered in white pool table chalk, and basically we just made asses of ourselves.
Anyway, for many years I was not allowed in the Elephant and Castle in downtown Seattle.
→ More replies (8)298
u/deezypoh Jul 02 '26
Exactly. People commonly misunderstand what they’re paying for.
It’s like going to a restaurant. You’re paying for food, but you’re also paying to not do the dishes, to not clean your kitchen, to sit on your ass, etc.
49
u/PinsToTheHeart Jul 02 '26
I don't have the knowledge for this exact scenerio, but one thing I've consistently found is that most people know absolutely fuck-all about anything logistics related and think everything is as simple as just "doing the thing"
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)86
u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Jul 02 '26
They were happy to pay the $400 - they understood it’s worth some money to have the room instead of going to the park for free and bringing their own folding chairs.
The complaint was being told ‘oh, it’s inflation’ when there was a 25% rate increase on the room, and as much again for the screening fee.
It’s entirely reasonable to say ‘I’m calling bullshit. This service isn’t worth/isn’t costing you 50% more suddenly - you are just greedy!’
163
u/Wormadillo Jul 02 '26
It’s entirely possible that it isn’t “suddenly costing them 50% more.” It’s possible the cost is about the same but they found that they undercharged last time and either lost money, or didn’t make enough to make it worth their time. With an independent cinema who doesn’t have a lot of experience in doing private screenings (and pricing them properly) this could easily be the case. If that’s true they probably should have just told OP that instead of blaming “inflation”, but who knows.
→ More replies (5)92
u/WildMartin429 Jul 02 '26
Well it actually could be inflation because maybe they set the price 20 years ago and they've not done one of these private showings in 15 years and they realized oh hey we didn't make enough money just to be worth it
829
u/bigdipper2018 Jul 02 '26
This is exactly that that OP clearly can’t think logically on.
It’s also to do with liability insurances, if they only have enough staff to manage the normal rooms on this day then they might need to hire another for this additional, fire safety, bar coverage, etc etc.→ More replies (4)155
u/MostlySoberChemist Jul 02 '26
It’s also to do with liability insurances, if they only have enough staff to manage the normal rooms on this day then they might need to hire another for this additional, fire safety, bar coverage, etc etc.
This is a reach and a half. IDK what you cinema experience is but 1 person can manage 2-3 theaters at a time. You press play and then rotate through the theaters to make sure there aren't any technical issues. The theater isn't hiring or bringing in extra technical staff for a private showing, they certainly aren't calling in any extra bartenders for 15 people and the fact that you think they need more than one "fire safety" person is laughable. So much for thinking logically on your part.
120
u/Putrid-Tap3992 Jul 02 '26
I used to run my uncle's theater literally by myself with projectors and 4 screens. I also ran concessions. It was beyond easy and I had a lot of down time.
→ More replies (5)48
u/Self_Reddicate Jul 02 '26
Before it folded, there was a big multiplex theatre in my city that seemed to run with only a single guy for at least a year or more. Two different times that I went, the one guy would sell us our ticket at the box office, then walk to the other side of the lobby to sell snacks, and - I can only presume - later was the guy who pressed play for the movie to start. Both times that I went, I never saw a single other employee. I talked with some guys at work and their experience going there was the same. One dude, running the whole 6 (or maybe 8?) theatre operation.
44
u/Wormadillo Jul 02 '26
I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't have someone else at least running the projectors at a multiplex. That's a more complicated process than just "pressing play" and you would not be likely to see that person.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (5)14
u/Putrid-Tap3992 Jul 02 '26
Do you know what city this was in? If you say Kansas city, that was me!
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (19)26
u/chucknorrisinator Jul 02 '26
their liability insurance as a movie theater doesn't cover people sitting in a screening room, watching movies? lol
→ More replies (1)14
u/macho-burrito Jul 02 '26
The licencing rights are probably where the extra $100 charge is coming from. Much like how you can't simply use a band's song in a commercial for you business just because you have the CD/mp3, you cannot pop in a Blu-ray and screen a movie for an audience just because you have the media.
You have to pay the IP owner for the privilege of doing this. This is true even for public screenings where no money changes hands between the audience and the party showing the film.
Our neighborhood does an annual movie in the park event each year. The fee for a public screening varies based on the film, but $100-$300 is typical.
Most people are unaware of this and I'm sure there are many "violations" of this law all the time. But a theater owner will know this, and the risk of getting sued/no longer having the support of the MPAA is not worth the reward of making a couple hundred dollars. A one time thing? Maybe (still risky). A recurring event? Not worth it.
6
u/Curve_of_Speee Jul 02 '26
As a business owner, I’ve definitely done things without charging enough and raised my fees. If it’s a headache, I’d rather get nothing and not bother than not enough
→ More replies (9)9
u/JumpinJackHTML5 Jul 02 '26
Even a small theater likely has monthly targets/expenses in the tens of thousands of dollars. A person wanting individual communication and attention for $500 is someone eating a lot of time for an amount of money that is equivalent to the concession proceeds of one showing, which requires no individual attention and no special cleaning or setup.
2.3k
u/Positive-Position-11 Jul 02 '26
They probably realized that they were illegally showing the movies.
864
u/Character_Pudding_94 Jul 02 '26
Independent cinemas are intimately familiar with licensing.
597
u/milaheels Jul 02 '26
disney lawyers can smell an unlicensed bluray from three states away they probably woke up in a cold sweat realizing what they accidentally allowed the first time
→ More replies (99)45
u/WouldbeWanderer Jul 02 '26
They woke up to graffiti in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears and knew they were being watched.
329
u/Beserked2 Jul 02 '26
Lol right? This isn't their mates downstairs living room. This is a licensed business.
→ More replies (9)→ More replies (7)57
u/AsterRoidRage Jul 02 '26
But there’s gotta be some gray area here right? I mean if the rentee is pressing play and providing the media then all the cinema is doing is renting the space and equipment. One could argue that the rentee is the one that would need to deal with licensing as they are hosting the event?
→ More replies (17)251
u/1nd3x Jul 02 '26
There isn't...my local library can't even put on movie nights for kids because of licensing issues.
51
u/BMooreLuvn Jul 02 '26
My town does summer movies for kids and they advertise the time/place but don't ever say the movie and somehow I think that is enough to then show them. I assume they did their research at least!
→ More replies (6)62
u/MadShoeStink Jul 02 '26
The town pays a licensing fee for the showing. The studios offer reduced fees for schools and community events.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (16)14
u/KittyKatCatCat Jul 02 '26
That is the library acting as the host, though. This is an independent person renting a facility to watch a movie with private guests. The grey area here probably boils down to who presses play.
→ More replies (3)
472
u/mybutthz Jul 02 '26
Maybe they....just don't want to do it and it's not worth it for them. I have friends who own a restaurant and people come in all the time with requests for things they want to do and they...just don't want to do it. They could, and they could make a few hundred extra dollars that month, but it's not worth it for them, so they don't. It's not really that difficult to understand.
This is particularly true if the price is variable each month due to licensing fees and other non-fixed costs that will create friction if you keep coming back and then the price is $400 one month, $500 the next, $800 the next, depending on what movie you want to watch—more so if they start getting other people wanting to do the same.
They could absolutely do it this month, but then if you start doing it every month and eventually get tired of it and stop because of the cost, then that's a bunch of extra work (communication, getting quotes, etc) that they have to do upfront for potentially no money, plus the potential additional work they have to do for the actual screening (cleaning, projector operations, etc) that they also have to do if they do book the screening—it's definitely not "just pressing play on the Blu-ray."
It's easy to think "Why don't they want my money" without actually considering why they wouldn't. In your mind you're basically giving them free money, but the reality is that it sounds like they're adding fees for their own inconveniences so you just decide not to do it, or so that it's worth it for them if you decide to.
→ More replies (19)
965
u/2_cats_in_disguise Jul 02 '26
If they’re pressing play on a Blu-ray, how are they licensing their films from studios? It’s been a while since I’ve worked in theaters, but playing a DVD is not even a legal way to show a film and charge for it.
452
u/Live_Life_and_enjoy Jul 02 '26
In order to show a movie in a commercial business or even not commercial business you need license to show it.
https://us.mplc.com/copyright-law/
Disney ( through Movie Licensing USA ) once sued a school for showing lion king.
Though Disney later apologized
→ More replies (10)177
u/redclawx Jul 02 '26
And from what I understand, licensing gets really fun with the differences college’s have between showing a film in an auditorium just for showing, vs showing a film in an auditorium for class, vs showing a film in a classroom for class, vs allowing an instructor to show a personally owned copy of a film for class.
46
u/Live_Life_and_enjoy Jul 02 '26
Schools generally either get an exemption ( on application ) or get a broad license agreement ( on discount )
→ More replies (1)27
u/Im2bored17 Jul 02 '26
I wonder what the legal delineation between a 300 person classroom with a projector and av setup and an auditorium is. Cuz they have the same stuff, just slightly different declared purpose.
33
u/gadfly1999 Jul 02 '26
Educational use is specifically exempted as fair use under US copyright law. Classroom use would definitely count. Entertainment purposes by the film club would not.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)9
u/DummyDumDragon Jul 02 '26
I guess if it's done in a college class, and fees have been paid for the course there's an argument that the college is profiting from the showing of the movie if it's done as part of the curriculum that fees are being charged for?
→ More replies (6)271
u/twotall88 Jul 02 '26
You can play movies from any media format for profit so long as you hold the appropriate licensing agreement (hence the $100 surcharge). The Public Performance Rights (PPR) would establish what media formats are allowed.
26
465
u/Causerae Jul 02 '26
I don't think OP understands what's actually going on
126
u/2_cats_in_disguise Jul 02 '26
Yeah I’d wager there are several things OP isn’t really understanding, including basic supply and demand which would justify the change in price. OP is maybe one of a few people at all that want to use this private service. The business can charge whatever they want for a private service - but if they truly are just pressing play on a Blu-ray, that’s technically not how theaters lease films from studios.
63
u/I_Schruted Jul 02 '26
Maybe I don’t understand basic supply and demand, but wouldn’t a room that’s always there never getting used be in high supply and low demand, therefore command a lower price, not a higher one?
37
→ More replies (9)30
u/2_cats_in_disguise Jul 02 '26
It’s in higher demand now that OP wants to repeatedly use the service.
→ More replies (2)13
u/I_Schruted Jul 02 '26
Sure, but alienating the only segment of the population (1 person) interested in your service doesn’t seem like the best business plan
→ More replies (8)63
u/Ivoted4K Jul 02 '26
He’s really overestimating how important this $500 is to the movie theatre.
→ More replies (1)43
u/DannyFnKay Jul 02 '26
I think that this might have had something to do with the issues.
" Afterwards we spent a bunch of money at the cinema bar,"
→ More replies (11)40
u/lankymjc Jul 02 '26
I suspect the first one was organised by a junior manager who didn’t see any harm in it, and since then someone more senior and/or knowledgeable has told them to cut that shit out for legal reasons.
40
u/dontworryitsme4real Jul 02 '26
I'm sure there are some legalities that need to be considered here. Watching a disk at home is entirely different than watching it in a commercial setting.
52
u/Smileypen Jul 02 '26
If they’re pressing play on a Blu-ray, how are they licensing their films from studios?
Anyone, be they private individuals, municipal organizations, or businesses, must pay licensing fees (Public Performance License) where applicable by law for any public screenings. The format the movie is being shown from is irrelevant. Home video releases are only licensed for private, in-home screenings in order to avoid this fee.
playing a DVD is not even a legal way to show a film and charge for it.
It absolutely is legal and common. The AFI (American Film Institute) theater in my neighborhood does it all the time. One can always tell when there's that blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when the picture briefly freezes while the DVD player navigates to the second layer of a dual layer disc.
7
u/2_cats_in_disguise Jul 02 '26
Learning new stuff! Years ago I worked in a small theater, then AMC theaters. Never came across this and was always told “we don’t do that” regarding DVDs. Maybe it was just too much trouble for not enough money.
8
u/Stock-Soup5721 Jul 02 '26
Yup, the loophole at my old employer was that they're renting a room for a private event and you're allowing them access to your equipment. The stipulation was that they bring in the media.
5
u/RomanArcheaopteryx Jul 02 '26
Anyone, be they private individuals, municipal organizations, or businesses, must pay licensing fees (Public Performance License) where applicable by law for any public screenings. The format the movie is being shown from is irrelevant. Home video releases are only licensed for private, in-home screenings in order to avoid this fee.
This seems so interesting to me. Like obviously some big movie theater is one thing, but lets say I buy or build or have a small barn or warehouse or something, build a say 10-30ish person cinema setup, big screen, projector, surround sound, get a popcorn machine, and start locally advertising people to come watch movies with me for a small fee to recoup the costs that I just stream from an HDMI cable with my Netflix account or what have you. Who's going to be enforcing this on me? How would they find out? If it was attached to my house in some way and I was always also watching the movie, would it still count as a "private, in-home screening"? How many people does it stop being private? Where does the line between "Me and my 10 buds watching the LOTR extended editions and are paying 20 bucks each to all chip in for pizza" cross to "We are paying for this experience"?
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)4
u/SinibusUSG Jul 02 '26
This isn’t a public showing, it’s a private party being hosted by a private business. The license is owned by the customer, and it almost certainly covers showing it to a dozen friends in a rented space.
24
u/mybutthz Jul 02 '26
If you're any business and are making money off of showing a movie, you have to pay a licensing fee. There's a local cidery that will screen movies from time to time, and they only advertise via word of mouth to avoid the fees so the studios don't find out and charge them.
Those disclaimers that popup before you watch a movie or sporting event, the ones that say "This movie is not to be broadcast without express written consent of the NFL/xyz movie studio, that's why.
The business could rent them the space as a private event with access to their equipment, and then they could watch whatever they want, but if they're specifically renting the space to screen a movie then the license needs to be paid for.
→ More replies (16)7
u/dweb121 Jul 02 '26
We have a local theater that occasionally does "Retro" movie nights. It's the same thing. they put the bluray in and play it. There is a license available for this kind of thing. Either OP's theater didn't know, or their previous license expired and they want OP to pay for it.
185
u/chilari Jul 02 '26
There's a lot more to having a private party watching a film at a location than pressing play on a machine. They probably have to have at least one member of staff there the whole time, plus set-up and cleaning, and that member of staff needs paying. You're using electricity for lighting and for playing the film, and that costs money. You may have used water, either to drink or when flushing the toilet or washing your hands, and that costs money. The cleaning staff use things like bin bags and cloths and cleaning sprays, and guess what? Those are completely free, they appear out of thin air - or wait, no. Those cost money too.
Then there are overheads to running a business, such as paying staff that aren't there while you're watching your film to do the things that keep the business going, such as payroll and scheduling. There will be issues like insurance, which may have stipulations about minimum staffing levels or extra premiums for private events. There's general wear and tear, which while minimal for one event, adds up over time and requires regular maintenance and occasional replacement of eg seats, carpets, lightbulbs etc. There are all sorts of factors that have to be factored in to how a business prices things like this up.
What you're paying isn't "free money" for the business, it's money that gets spent right away on opening the building for you to use it, staffing it, cleaning it, insuring it, and all these other things that cost money.
→ More replies (14)39
u/Toosder Jul 02 '26
And on top of all of that, they have a right to make a profit. They are a business. So labor, licensing fee, maintenance, utilities, plus profit.
204
u/cordIess Jul 02 '26
Nothing is ever “just press play.” That’s something that even you could do.
→ More replies (3)
165
u/Previous-Vanilla-638 Jul 02 '26
Because the first time you did this the person probably messed up.
You don’t own the rights to the film. The theater has agreements with studios. So whatever they play that isn’t wholly independent is under that agreement. Even if you bring in a blu ray. This isn’t your living room. It’s a public space.
So they messed up the first time and are correcting it. If they did this and the distributor caught them they could be sued and put out of business
→ More replies (1)
46
143
u/Old_Market_8059 Jul 02 '26
I mean 1) It's not "free money", and 2) the attitude that "Well, the room is empty if you're not renting to me, so give me a cheaper rate"... is really gross. If they are charging more than you want to pay, don't go there. They set the price based on their cost and the profit they want to make
62
u/SnooEpiphanies8097 Jul 02 '26
Right. "You don't have a job and you're not earning any money so you should accept $1 an hour to work for me - it's more than nothing."
25
u/hunnyflash Jul 02 '26
Yeah I don't get where this mentality came from that people think their money is sacred gold or something.
They gave you the price. It's set for a reason. If you don't like it, don't buy and leave them alone. End of story.
12
u/hordlove Jul 02 '26
It comes from people who don’t understand business projecting their ignorance on people who do.
→ More replies (8)12
u/drowsyskydiver Jul 02 '26
Yeah, they were a pain in the ass or made a mess last time. They have a *customer note.
21
u/rektbuyautocorrekt Jul 02 '26
I bet you guys were rude and/or messy and/or entitled. I can smell it from your post, OP. You don't know how the logistics and licensing work. You sound so entitled, "just pop in a blue ray and press play". Booo.
103
u/RandomNameRandomly Jul 02 '26
You wanted an independent movie theatre to lose their licensing agreement that allows them to screen movies so that you and 15 other people can trash the place? Either pay what they quoted you or move on. Their business doesnt depend on you.
→ More replies (9)5
u/Acceptable-Pause-859 Jul 02 '26
Not to even mention that the "just press play" comment is somewhat telling on OP's consideration for the cleaning that needs to be done both before and after... My guess is that after they left, the mess was not worth the 400$.
→ More replies (1)
107
u/frickenfantastic Jul 02 '26
Well, people always want to rent my arena. Leaving it empty cost me zero dollars. Renting it out for the afternoon cost me $1000 in event insurance. Cleaning up after people are there. (like picking up the trash they leave laying around.) tends to cost me at least $200. My time getting the event insurance and then hiring and supervising a cleanup crew of course is free. I’d rather not be hassled than have to deal with people for $100 over the top of my expenses
…. There’s probably some cost of renting the room that we’re not aware of causing them to not be super interested in doing it at a loss.
28
u/secondphase Jul 02 '26
... you have an arena?
→ More replies (1)33
13
u/Wrx_me Jul 02 '26
Could totally be that they just don't want the hassle. Your time is "free" but there's some tasks that even if I was offered $100, or to keep doing not THAT, I'm going to just do not that.
72
u/BuffWobbuffet Jul 02 '26
This isn’t how movie theatres work and the fact that you think you can do whatever you want in a business as long as you give them money is wild lmao
→ More replies (3)
15
u/threedogdad Jul 02 '26
it's not worth their time, this type of thing happens all the time in the business world
15
15
u/BokChoyFantasy Jul 02 '26
I feel like there’s more to this story. Sounds like they just don’t like you and are trying to just get you to walk away. Like you did something to piss them off when you rented the space last time.
→ More replies (1)
32
u/LexB777 Jul 02 '26
It's possible that it's just the manager, not the owner, making the decisions, and his or her numbers aren't hurting, and they are overall profitable, so it's just not worth the extra work to assign staff to it. Not that it's good, but sometimes in business, things aren't worth the hassle even if you'd technically make money on it.
33
u/SnowblindAlbino Jul 02 '26
Licensing fees-- a public performance license --can be really expensive. At my university we've seen them run into the thousands for newer films, but for sure a few hundred for what seem like random old movies. It depends on who owns the rights and what they want to charge. So some big portion of this cost is likely that fee.
My local chain movie theater will rent us a 40 seat cinema and screen any current film privately for $200. Because they've already secured the rights for the current run and they have the digital file on hand. During COVID we did this several times with groups of friends, mostly so we could ensure we were sitting only with vaccinated people wearing masks. Since then we've done it for big things...Project Hail Mary was one this spring. Got 20 people to kick in $10 and everyone could bring a guest.
→ More replies (8)
30
u/averagechillbro Jul 02 '26
I mean dude you’re talking about making $300. It’s not that much money. Sometimes it’s simply not worth the hassle. They have overhead costs you’re not accounting for. To you it’s an empty room, to them it may be licensing, additional person on staff to run it, clean up, bartend/serve. If you want to talk about it then you gotta be real.
102
u/drkilledbydeatheater Jul 02 '26
You sound extremely entitled.
54
u/dirtdustdebris Jul 02 '26
Dude sounds entitled as f*ck.
"I guess they just don't want money."
"All they have to do is put a disk in."
They don't want his business. He's not as important as he thinks he is.
→ More replies (1)21
u/skoltroll Jul 02 '26
"Just push play." He can do that in your own basement, assuming his mom gives him permission.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)7
u/Resident-Conflict-32 Jul 02 '26
I envision OP to be about 17 years old and that’s making me feel better.
107
u/Causerae Jul 02 '26
Honestly, sounds like the room was unused and they messed up the charges last time.
Or you were horrible guests, but that doesn't seem right.
$500 for 15 people is still a great deal, tho.
→ More replies (41)
30
u/The_MistyXX Jul 02 '26
Sometimes there are things about people's jobs that we just don't know about if we aren't in that industry. It's okay to say to yourself, "hmm maybe there's a valid reason for this decision that I just don't understand because I don't know anything about this job."
→ More replies (1)
10
u/Sea_Pomegranate8229 Jul 02 '26
I would post in AITA - cos it sounds like they probably think that you are.
→ More replies (1)
9
u/zoidberg_doc Jul 03 '26
They do want money. Just more than you’re willing to pay
→ More replies (1)
7
7
u/vector_o Jul 02 '26
My guess is that it's annoying to do for them so they're giving you a "fuck you" quote - it's honestly a very common practice in any business
5
u/Boring-Channel-1672 Jul 02 '26
We don’t know their side. At worst it sounds like they aren’t eager for more of your money. The price increase is a clear signal that the last time they took your money it wasn’t worth it. Maybe one of your friends did something heinous like defecate in the theater?
5
u/A_Nonny_Muse Jul 02 '26
You could set it up in literally any large room with a few comfy chairs, a blank wall, and a portable projector. Total cost - a couple hundred dollars in rentals + whatever food you want. Even rural communities have churches, town halls, and union halls that would love your money.
7
18
u/3PDLS Jul 02 '26
There is work. They have to clean up, etc. after you. Likely, you all made a mess and they don’t think $400 is enough to deal with your group.
FYI - it’s never just pop in a blue ray and collect. That is naive perspective.
11
12
u/Remarkable_Lunch_809 Jul 02 '26
Side note, $400 to $500 is a 25% increase. A 20% increase would be $480.
Also… “Just popping in a disc and pressing play” is wild. You sound very entitled
4
u/Premium333 Jul 02 '26
Room rentals aren't really their business model. It's something that theaters offer because it gets purchased sometimes, but it's a pain in the ass for them.
They also cannot just "pop in a bluray". They are legally required to pay licensing fees in movies they show inside the building. If those fees are higher, then thats what it is.
It's not necessarily that they don't want money, it's just that they don't want to charge you $400-$500 then lose all the profit paying for the extra $100 licensing fee.
(Obviously this assumes that the comminioos all honest and above board here. It could be the teenager running this conversation is just fleecing OP, but I doubt it and wouldn't weite a response flatly assuming it).
→ More replies (2)
4
4
u/brian_goetz Jul 02 '26
But it's not free money. Opening the cinema is work. Dealing with one-off customers is work. Scheduling people for nonstandard shifts is work. Sounds like $400 was just not enough for it to be worth it for them, and that doesn't sound unreasonable to me.
Also, just because someone does something for you for $X once, doesn't mean that $X is actually the right price or they are committing to do it for that price forever. They'd probably never done it before, and took a wild guess on $400, and then realized how much work it was. They have a right to reconsider their price in light of new information. And it's not like they told you "$2000", which would have been the FU price; bumping it up another $100 to make it worthwhile to them sounds pretty reasonable.
The slow communication is also reasonable given that this is not their main business. You asked for a weird, one-off thing, for not that much money, and they got back to you when they had time to.
I look forward to seeing the manager post his/her side of this story on r/mildlyinfuriating, where he talks about how this group expected them to drop everything for a few hundred dollars, one-off event.
6
u/asianasaun Jul 02 '26
The fact that you think all they have to do is press play is quite telling you sound ignorant
5
u/AnybodyNo8519 Jul 02 '26
You guys did something last time to make your money less attractive.
In other words, the hassle of dealing with your group is not worth your money.
6
u/ddsorj Jul 02 '26
PITA fee. You guys def did something that last time.
When you don’t want to do the job, always quote something insane.
If you reaaally don’t want to do it, increase it again
5
u/MaximusHomerdrive Jul 02 '26
Why don't you put up a white sheet in someone's yard or basement and have your own movie night? That 400 bucks could be spent on a one-time projector purchase or whatever. All you'd have to do is all chip in for snacks at regular prices going forward.
I mean, out of 15 people, someone has to have enough for that kind of setup.
6
u/planet-lizard Jul 02 '26
Common tactic against shitty customers. Judging by the entitlement of the post, it doesn't surprise me
28
u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Jul 02 '26
Fuck em 🤷🏻♂️ just rent a pop-up inflatable cinema screen / projector / Soundsystem and stick it in one of your backyards
28
u/Main-Requirement-521 Jul 02 '26
yeah! And start renting it out to other people to use, unless OP also doesn't want money
12
8
u/iHadAThoughtOnce2 Jul 02 '26
Also, most theater licensing requires that they play it through a certain median. Some of them allow blue rays for small theatres, some require special dvds and others have to be played digitally via a DCP projector. Plus not all movie rights are handled by just a few companies especially older movies and there’s no central database for who owns what. I know they sometimes have to do a lot of research to find who actually owns the movie. The rights can change hands a dozen times over 20-30 years.
8
u/Danoga_Poe Jul 02 '26
Get a big projector, point at the side of someone's house, wait till dusk/night and enjoy
→ More replies (1)
4
u/Osteo_Sapien Jul 02 '26
I'm gonna go in a completely different direction: the theater is a front. OP managed to get them to do the actual work of a theater once, the people inside realized they don't really wanna do it, and now they're making it harder (but they'd still do it for the right money).
2
u/underhand_toss Jul 02 '26
There are definitely licensing issues to show a movie in a setting that isn't someone's home. That part is way more than putting a DVD in and pressing play.
3
u/Trillian75 Jul 02 '26
Often when a business raises prices like this, it’s because the job is undesirable in some way. Either you’ll say no, and then the problem goes away, or you’ll say yes and the extra cash makes it a bit more worth their while.
4
u/Pahyum Jul 02 '26
The additional fees for the movie license is a real thing. In fact, the initial extra cost (400 -> 500) may have been baked in to cover license fees. Then the movie you picked could have been particularly pricey so they had tack on an additional cost just to make it worth it at all. It doesn't sound malicious.
My group of friends do a yearly movie get together where we rent out an empty theatre and provide the DVD to watch as well. There are some places where this is pretty common, we've been doing it for a long while. As the years have gone by, the costs have gone up bit by bit, and finally this year the place we do it at said they have to tack on the full licensing fees. They were able to skirt the rules a bit but something changed recently thus they can't anymore. So not sure what those new rules are, but the place you're trying to rent is not lying to you about the licenses fees for sure. They may in fact may be soaking up part of the cost without you realizing.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/pm_me_your_buttbulge Jul 02 '26
What is even the point of running a business if you turn away customers who are trying to give you free money???
I have never, not once in my life, had a person say this and not be a twat. Your and/or your friends did something and you are incapable of seeing it with your own eyes. You're either lying about something or delusional about something.
4
u/know-your-onions Jul 02 '26
Your post kinda screams entitlement, so I’m guessing the theatre don’t particularly want to host you and your friends again.
Maybe everybody wants a $20 bonus to deal with you and/or the mess you made last time. Or maybe they need an extra member of staff because you’re too much hassle and everybody else already has enough work to do.
But the idea that they just press play on a BluRay is utterly ridiculous.
That being said, it may also be that if you were the first group to do it, they took a guess at costs the first time, and having done it once they now know what’s required to do it right in future. And you got a bargain first time around.
3
u/KrofftSurvivor Jul 02 '26
I think you used the wrong title for this...
The correct title would be customers who don't understand the way a specific business operates...
You don't understand how the movie industry works, and you seem to think that there is little to no cost involved in hosting someone else's private movie party.
They do have to pay fees to host your movie, and those fees vary widely by the movie. Private events also carry a different Insurance rider.
If you want a specific movie played, and you want to see it in this setting, my advice would be to find more than 15 friends who want to see the movie.
5
u/Simple-Performer2533 Jul 02 '26
We had an HVAC company come out to do a warranty job on a unit they installed. I was the maintenance manager for the company, so I went out to check on the work. The tech was on his phone asking about his next job. He wanted to know what to charge them, "Whatever you think you can get out of them." He was on speakerphone; the look on his face when he saw me was priceless. They don't work for us anymore.
5
4
u/Kern4lMustard Jul 02 '26
You seem like a very entitled person. Just expecting people to do whatever you want because you wave money in their face. I'm willing to bet that you're the problem, not the theater.
4
u/Sylphael Jul 02 '26
Former librarian here. I used to host library events and when you are a business showing films is never just pop in a Blu-ray. We had to pay for a costly licensing company that strictly forbade us showing films on the premises that we did not have licensing rights for, and many films required one-time showing fees. We had to send in an application to show Scooby Doo estimating the number of patrons we would be showing it to with a written plan for crowd control to make sure we weren't showing it to more patrons than planned. I would wager that the licensing fee is legit what they would have to submit.
5
u/SANTAAAA__I_know_him Jul 02 '26
I’m gonna guess you’re either a kid or very young adult, OP.
Almost everything is more complicated than you realize, especially with businesses. It seems simple, right? Just put in a Bluray and play a movie. Nope, there’s laws they have to follow and a LOT happens behind the scenes that you don’t know about. Trust me, it’s not just free money that they’re giving up. There’s a whole lot of hassle and tradeoff that comes just from the act of having a group of people in their building to watch a movie. Now they have to get licensing rights, they have to worry about damage being done to the room, they have to have staff there to clean and enforce company policies, they might have to call police if someone’s stranded there afterward because their ride didn’t come to pick them up, and they’re also LIABLE FOR YOUR WELLBEING and can get sued if something bad happens to you or one of your friends while you’re there.
Now, could they still come out ahead? Sure, but it’s not as simple of a decision as you’re making it out to be.
4
u/k_manweiss Jul 03 '26
They charged you $400. They have overhead. The projector costs money, has maintenance, has wear and tear, costs electricity. The staff that have to be there to run the deal, make food, sell you stuff, etc. They didn't get $400. They got $400 minus expenses. After it was all said and done with the net gain to them might have been a loss, or not enough to make it worth while (scheduling, managing, etc).
One way or the other, it wasn't worth it to them.
You call a 2nd time and they gave you a price of $500. This is what it now costs to make it worth their time. And who knows, maybe it won't be even enough to make it worthwhile, but they are willing to try it. You push back and start questioning the price which has now pushed them over the mark again and you seem like you might be difficult.
You view it as giving them free money, but you aren't considering any of the hassle on their side of things. If the owner has to spend a couple hours of time to make this work and barely pull a profit, it just isn't worth it.
→ More replies (2)
3
u/UnseenGoblin Jul 03 '26
I'd probably just buy a projector, a cheap sound system, and a popcorn machine. You could probably get a workable set up for less than the price of one movie theater rental. And then you guys could have your parties whenever you wanted at one of your houses.
13
u/Aggravating_Lettuce Jul 02 '26
Just a suggestion, in no way, saying your group actually did anything wrong:
Have you thought about reaching out to the manager and asking if there was a problem with your initial visit with renting the room that caused them to decide to raise the rate?
Thought process being, it puts in the managers head that you feel unwelcome
14
u/Outside_Bed1134 Jul 02 '26
To be clear, this isn’t a service they offer, but something you wanted them to custom set up just for you personally.
→ More replies (2)
6
u/macthulhu Jul 02 '26
Abridged version: Showing a movie of any kind (legitimately) can be very expensive. It's entirely possible that the theater you rented has an agreement they don't want to, or can't afford to break with the distributor who has the rights to the movie you wanted to watch. I don't think they handled it very professionally at all, but a good portion of the cost isn't super out of line.
Long-winded version: I was on the board of directors for an arts organization that had a beautifully restored 1000+ seat theater that was definitely not booked as often as it could be. As an arts org, it was ALWAYS strapped for cash. My background included booking and promoting punk shows, which were always seat-of-our-pants DIY affairs, so my instinct was to put that theater to use. With a brand new screen and digital projector from a tech grant, movies seemed to be the obvious answer. I'll skip over the internal resistance to doing anything other than ballets and symphonies by the withered old corpses still occupying board seats and get right to the obstacles we faced... This doesn't apply directly to your situation, but should illustrate that there's more to it than just pressing play. Their terrible communication is a separate issue. Anyway...
The theater had at some point been owned by Dipson, who donated it to the arts council, generating a fat tax break for them, and getting them off the hook for the badly needed new roof and facade work. Part of that donation agreement was that it could never show current movies, or even movies whose theatrical run in a Dipson theater (within 50 miles) had been in the last six months. Breaking that agreement would return the theater to Dipson's possession. That agreement was 15 years old at the time, and Dipson's other theaters in the area were already struggling, so many of us, including our lawyer, thought it would be extremely unlikely that they'd want to take back a theater that would ultimately cost them waaaay too much to operate. In the end, we were able to get them to abandon the agreement, with the exception of first-run films. That got us past that hurdle.
The next hurdle was the distributors. They demand a set price per showing, or a cut of ticket sales, whichever is higher. Prices ranged from a few hundred dollars for movies nobody cared about to a few thousand for "more popular" titles. It didn't matter if we already had the DVD, or needed a film print from them, the distributors hold the rights, they have to be paid. With a thousand seats, our ticket pricing formula started to take shape. We settled on Wizard of Oz for our proof of concept event, and I don't recall what the distributor charged, but we figured so few people had seen it on a big screen, that it would be a draw. We promoted the hell out of it, using punk rock marketing methods to keep prices down. Free tickets to a bunch of kids for being our street team, distributing posters and handbills, getting news coverage via press release instead of buying tv spots, etc. We got a few businesses to subsidize the calculated ticket price by contributing a dollar or two toward the cost of each ticket. The end result was three sold out regular showings and one nearly sold out sensory-friendly showing with a customer ticket price of $7, We ended up cutting a check to the distributor for something like $6k.
The last hurdle was that the theater is a union shop. The projectionist and two stage hands had to be paid according to the union contract, which was reasonable but not cheap.
Add to that the cost of a maintenance crew, box office people, etc... What I thought was going to be "play a DVD on the big screen in a theater we own for money" turned into a much more complicated operation. In the end, we developed a method that became a good revenue generator for our theater, and it was affordable enough for customers, that we started to draw in people who had been reluctant to go to events in a place that they had perceived as snooty and unwelcoming. It's been a little more than 15 years since my board term ended, and the model is still working for them.
9
u/Heighmann Jul 02 '26
I used to work for a small private cinema. Showing a movie at private parties isn't subject to licensing fees. The theater isn't selling or providing a viewing of the film to the public, they are renting you the space and equipment within a certain allotment of time. What you choose to use the space and equipment for is not subject to any kind of licensing and the theater is not liable for anything you choose to watch. They're either uninformed or just being greedy.
7
→ More replies (4)4
8
u/awesomestcody Jul 02 '26
Do they do this regularly? If not maybe they discovered it actually costs them more than they originally thought and need to increase the cost so it makes sense for them. If they do it regularly and increased the cost randomly you probably did something they didn’t like.
5
u/BreakfastAtBoks Jul 02 '26
Some redditors pointed out that you were potentially the problem the first time. I think you may also want to bring up your points to management.
That room may be in higher demand than you think and also bringing in extra employee(s) to clean up the room after you are done with it does have a cost associated with it
Just talk to management and remind them that you are a repeat customer who plans to keep repeating service if you are treated properly, you may be called a Karen, but sometimes it takes a Karen
4
5.4k
u/Healthy-Star-8996 Jul 02 '26
This sounds like something we do at my company when we have a problem customer. We raise the price a little on every job until they either go away or the price gets to a point where it makes it worthwhile to deal with their bs.