If you are thinking of starting a cinema business, there are literally tons of things you need to know, plan and do. It requires serious work, time and money investment. However, we’ve come up with a summary of all the important points you need to know to start with.
Research and Planning
This includes knowing what type of cinema you’d want to operate. Is it a high-end first-run theatre, independent cinema or maybe a drive-in theatre. One other option is getting a franchise. Know the difference between the various types of cinemas and choose which one you’d want to have.
Deciding the type of cinema you want will basically already give you the type of patrons you’d want to target which brings you to the next step, finding the right location. You’d want to find an area that is well populated and where people spends on recreational activities as these people are likely to frequent movies too.
Once you have the location, you’ll have to know the local business requirements in your chosen area so you can work ahead on completing them and making sure that your future business will be compliant with legislation both national and local.
Tallying Up the Cost
Before you even get started, you’d have to get a close estimate of ALL the potential expenses in order to make sure that you can afford to see everything through until your business is operational. These are the expenses you’d want to make sure you have allotted funds for:
Venue rent/ lease or purchase fund – You can be planning to build an establishment from scratch or getting an existing building renovated and converted into a cinema venue, either way, it will still cost you. Canvas construction materials and labor costs from several different stores and contractors.
Venue Set Up – Get a cost estimate for how much setting up your film venue would cost. This includes the signages, projection equipment, screen, cinema curtains and carpeting, seats etc.
Crew/ People – Know how many people it will require to run the type of cinema you are aiming for and how much potential wages will be for each position. You need to have at least 3 months of wages funded before starting your business.
Other Things To Consider
Ticket pricing
Marketing your business
Film showing licensing
Financial management (Taxes etc)
For detailed “how-tos” about starting a cinema business, you can also read books and magazines with databases on moviegoers’ demographic like the film journal website. For professional cinema planning, installations and servicing, contact us.
