You'll have to pay more to see a movie at an AMC Theatre if you want prime seating
- AMC Theatres announced on Monday new pricing based on seat location.
- Sitting in the middle of the theater will cost more, unless you subscribe to AMC's membership program.
If you want to sit in the middle of a movie theater at an AMC location, you'll have to pay more.
AMC Theatres, the largest theater chain in the world, announced new pricing variations for seating on Monday in an imitative called Sightline at AMC. The variable pricing is for any showtime after 4 pm, and doesn't apply to "Discount Tuesdays," AMC said.
Here's how the new pricing breaks down:
- Standard Sightline are the most common seats and available at regular ticket price.
- Value Sightline includes the front row and select ADA seats.
- Preferred Sightline are in the middle of the auditorium and sold at a premium charge.
Here's the catch: Value Sightline is only available for members of AMC's subscription program, AMC Stubs A-List. It's essentially AMC's answer to MoviePass, in which customers can see up to three movies a week for a monthly fee.
Furthermore, A-List members don't have to pay the additional cost for a Preferred Sightline seat.
AMC has already launched Sightline at select locations and plans to roll it out to all locations in the US by the end of the year.
The initiative could be a way for AMC to boost membership for A-List. But it's also the latest evolution of variable pricing at movie theaters — which has until now been more focused on charging different prices based on the movie or format, and not necessarily on seat location.
Over the weekend, M. Night Shyamalan's "Knock at the Cabin" topped the box office with $14.2 million, followed by "80 for Brady" with $12.5 million.
But more people actually saw the latter, according to the theater-attendance tracking firm EntTelligence: 1.3 million people came out for "80 for Brady" compared to 1.1 million for "Knock at the Cabin."
The company said the average ticket price over the weekend for "80 for Brady" was $9.79, but was $12.30 for "Knock at the Cabin."