Coming Attractions:
A Preview of What To Expect When Meeting at the Movies
Provided by Julie Wiggins, Executive Director, Sales, Cineplex Entertainment
Imagine showing your presentation on the same screen that just showed “American Hustle” or “Wolf of Wall Street.” It can happen when you bring your group for a meeting at the movies. Doing so will give you the “best A/V experience you’ve ever had,” says Julie Wiggins, the executive director of sales at Canadian chain Cineplex. While it might not be intuitive that you can do business in a movie theatre, it actually makes a lot of sense: in addition to the great benefits of built-in technology services, you won’t be competing with much of a crowd during day sessions and there are no restrictions on catering. Plus, just imagine the attendance you’ll receive when you mention you’re meeting at the cinema—it all makes for a blockbuster experience. Here, Wiggins fills you in on what to expect when booking your featured attraction.
Professional Staff
You might assume you’ll have a 16-year-old, part-time employee facilitating your meeting, but that’s not the case. A qualified manager handles all your meeting needs and is assigned to you from day one.
Good Seating
We do theatre style really well, which can be an engaging medium. One type of meeting that is really effective in this setup is a product launch. Cineplex recently had a retail chain come in with their employees to introduce the new Christmas merchandise they’d be selling. On the big screen, the employees could see the products in greater detail than someone standing in the front of the room with a small sample.
Multiple Locations
The great thing about a theater chain is that there are locations in every town big and small, so no matter where your office or clients are there is a spot close to you. You’re able to deal with one chain, one phone call and one person. There’s also the capability to do satellite at multiple locations so an office in New York and Los Angeles could participate in the same meeting.
Scheduling Flexibility
Because we have so many screening rooms, you can book with us two weeks to two years in advance. Theater spaces are available any time except for Friday nights after 6 p.m. and weekends after noon—and really who wants to have a meeting on a weekend? However, we do a lot of corporate functions on Saturday mornings, especially those that involve families such as customer appreciation events.
Open Catering
A big selling feature for meeting at the movies is that you can pick your own caterer, since we don’t have any onsite that can make food for larger groups. However, we do have kitchen space and food preparation areas where we assemble our concessions that are open for use by your catering company—or one of our recommendations.
Competitive Rates
Whereas a hotel might charge $1,500-$2,000 for A/V service, we have better equipment that costs more like $500 to utilize. And when you’re spending so much money to make your presentation, this is a great area to save expenses and have it viewed properly.
Get Connected
Cineplex
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