Want a great seat at your local AMC to see Avengers: Doomsday? You better be willing to pay at least $18 a month. AMC Theatres plans to begin blocking off its best seats for customers who pay a monthly fee.
CEO Adam Aron said on an earnings call Tuesday that paying monthly members of two AMC loyalty programs — A-List and Stubs Premiere — will get priority access to the best seats. The program is expected to launch sometime later this year.
“AMC will introduce preferred premier seating, where we will block and reserve the best seats in the house in our theaters to be accessed first by our A-List and our Stubs Premiere members — that’s the two VIP tiers within our Stubs program — at no added charge,” Aron said. “At AMC, we will assure that the best seats in our auditoriums are [held] — at first, anyway — for our best customers. We think it will be a considerable consumer benefit that our most frequent guests will notice and greatly appreciate, further cementing their brand loyalty to AMC.”
Currently, A-List costs $27.99 a month and Premiere costs $17.99 a month. While members won’t have to pay an additional surcharge for the seating access, the prices of the programs themselves could, in theory, change.
If this idea sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because AMC tested a similar idea three years ago. The pilot program was called Sightline and involved charging three tiers of seat pricing, like at a concert venue, with escalating prices for better seats.
The concept received backlash online, including from actor Elijah Wood, who tweeted, “The movie theater is and always has been a sacred democratic space for all and this new initiative by @AMCTheatres would essentially penalize people for lower income and reward for higher income.” (Wood also recently blasted a decision by Alamo Drafthouse to introduce mobile phone ordering during its screenings).
While AMC’s new idea is rather similar to Sightline — giving better seats to customers who are likely paying the company more money — it can be readily framed as rewarding loyal customers (rather than, say, punishing those who cannot afford the best seats). Also, for those already inclined to be a loyalty program member — A-List members get up to four free movies a week and free refills on large popcorn, for instance — this measure could be considered exactly what the company is describing it as: A free perk.
