Alamo Drafthouse is the latest theater chain to look at launching a ticket subscription service.
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema today unveiled plans to befin testing its own subscription service at its Yonkers, NY location next month.
There are not many concrete details of what the plan, to be called Alamo Season Pass, will offer as the beta users that are being signed up right now through Alamo’s website will be testing a number of different price points and features. Members of the Alamo’s current Victory rewards program will also receive invitations to become beta testers for Season Pass.
The announcement follows last week’s announcement from AMC of their own subscription-based, which allow patrons to see up to three movies a week at an AMC theater for $20 a month.
Based in Austin, TX, Alamo Drafthouse has 36 locations and is built on a brand of offering independent film and in-theater seat dining service.
MoviePass had no immediate statement in regards to the Alamo Drafthouse’s announcement. However, in a Reddit AMA this morning, company CEO Mitch Lowe had this to say about AMC’s jump into subscription
AMC’s launch is a great validation of what we’ve been saying for years – in order to compete with streaming services, consumers want a subscription model.
Even though we’re a little disappointed in AMC for not supporting the model earlier, we understand it was a business tactic and they’re a competitor now. We’re happy that they’ve come around to believing in consumers to get them back into the theaters, and this is a good thing for the industry overall.
Competition creates excitement and energy, and it’s competition that will just make us better.
Even with three million subscribers, MoviePass has been struggling to turn a profit. Recently, they made adjustments to the service where users may be charged an extra fee for seeing a movie at specific times, such as opening weekends. They have also stated that they are working to allow the service to be used with online ticketing and for the purchase of a second ticket for a subscriber’s friend for a small additional fee.
