Screenings bring music events to wider audience

By Jill Kipnis

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) – Young couples on dates, baby
boomers with their kids, teen girls with moms in tow. They
stand in line at the movie theater, waiting to buy tickets.
Deciding to have nachos or popcorn. Large or medium soda. But
they are not there to see the summer blockbuster film or the
latest indie buzz movie. They’re there to check out their
favorite band.

Increasingly, record labels, promoters and artist managers
are teaming with National CineMedia to create in-theater
screening events touting new music DVDs or concert tours. It is
becoming a key new promotion tool for the music industry.

These one-night-only events typically involve beaming
programing to theaters in as many as 75 markets across the
country. The program could feature a full-length music DVD
before the title’s release date or a live performance from a
stop on an artist’s tour.

Though the concept is not new — in-theater music events
trace back to about 2002 — the music industry and National
CineMedia, a Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Theatres
company, are expanding use of the events because of their
all-around benefits.

Twenty-two in-theater music programs took place in 2004,
and National CineMedia’s goal is to host two to four per month,
according to Dan Diamond, the company’s VP of digital
programing.

Some individual music events have been attended by 40,000
patrons nationwide. By 2006, Diamond expects that number to
grow to more than 100,000 nationwide for a single event.

Additionally, in a partnership between National CineMedia
and Buena Vista Music Group, the first in-theater branded
concert series is debuting this summer and may become an annual
event.

All events take place at Regal-owned theaters (which
includes United Artists Theatres and Edwards Theatres). It is
expected that AMC locations will become involved as early as
next year.

PROMOTIONAL VALUE

“Everybody needs help with marketing,” Kiss manager Doc
McGhee says.

McGhee helped produce the June 27 screening of “Rockin’ the
Corps,” a concert filmed at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in
San Diego featuring such acts as Destiny’s Child, Godsmack and
Ted Nugent, that was broadcast at 132 Regal theaters in 74
markets. He says “the retention span of (a movie-theater)
audience is 80-something percent versus television.” Image
Entertainment is releasing a “Rockin’ the Corps” DVD and CD
Sept. 6.

For the theaters, these events help fill auditoriums on
Mondays and Tuesdays, which are slower movie traffic nights.

“We look at this as an opportunity to drive additional
concession revenues,” says Ray Nut, senior VP of business
relations for Regal Entertainment Group. “The reason why music
made a lot of sense is we could premiere a DVD on a Monday
night before it was released on Tuesday. A Monday night in a
theater is pretty quiet.”

National CineMedia’s $75 million in-theater digital network
makes these events possible. For live events, an uplink located
at the concert facility sends the data to a satellite at each
movie theater. For prerecorded events, content is coded to
National CineMedia’s digital network specifications at the
company’s Denver headquarters, and is then sent to individual
satellite receivers at the specific movie theaters.

SALES GENERATOR?

The theaters are making money from concessions, but the
financial impact on the music industry is less clear. Music
executives say it is difficult to pinpoint how many music DVD
or concert ticket sales are a direct result of the events.

It is also unclear how the theaters and music industries
share in ticket revenue; admission prices range from $10 to
$20. Both sides are shelling out their own marketing dollars
for each event. Neither party would comment on specific
financial details of these deals, though Diamond says that
“from a revenue prospective, it’s deal-by-deal dependent. In
all cases, everybody wins.”

The new “Summer Break 2K5″ concert series venture between
National CineMedia and Buena Vista Music Group features three
90-minute shows broadcast to 86 Regal theaters in 66 markets
across the country throughout the month of August. They feature
Hollywood Records acts Jesse McCartney and Aly & AJ and Jive
Records’ Bowling for Soup.

In the best cases, “If an artist is playing Seattle, but
not Spokane and Boise, this would be a way to extend a tour to
reach more fans,” Meglen says. “Also, the concert ticket might
be $75, but it’s only $15 to see it in the theater.”

McGhee jokes that maybe in the future “people will want to
see a show in a theater instead of sitting in the mud.”