Audio Video News

AMC Upsizes Moviehouse Seating

Mark Fleischmann  |  Nov 25, 2014

Desperate to reverse declining movie attendance, the AMC theater chain plans to install reclining seats in 1,800 of its 5,000 theaters. The seats are so big that they had to remove up to two-thirds of seating capacity, leaving some theaters with as few as 70 seats. But attendance has shot up 80 percent in the renovated moviehouses, with box-office revenue rising 60 percent, and that may save theaters that were already losing money.

AMC is hedging its bets, though, installing seats that don’t recline as far in better-performing theaters, and avoiding the seat upsizing altogether in busy major-market theaters (sorry, N.Y. and L.A.). And in theaters where bigger seats are attracting more moviegoers, ticket price hikes will eventually follow. Even so, after a quarter-century of watching home theater eat their lunch, the theater chains are finally wising up. We’d rather have a big seat than 3D.

COMMENTS
dnoonie's picture
Submitted by dnoonie on November 26, 2014 - 10:33pm

Well, I'm glad more people are going to the theater because of better seats...now maybe they can afford to get some technicians to come in and QC their AV systems a couple times a week, then they could get me to go more than twice a year.

conanb's picture
Submitted by conanb on January 16, 2015 - 3:50am

To compete with my home theater, AMC would have to provide:
Reclining seating with adjustable bass-shakers and a recessed reading light.
3D IMAX with surround sound at a volume that does not make my ears bleed.

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