With the advent of Fandango back in 2000, going to the movies became easier than ever. Not only did the site introduce the world to online ticketing, it was also an indispensable resource for theater listings and locations. Atom Tickets knows this well, and is keeping that seismic shift in mind as they are about to attempt their own online ticketing coup – with some interesting new features.
The Hollywood Reporter recently profiled the upstart ticketing outfit that is promising some features that movie fans have been clamoring for over time. On top of ticketing, concession sales and possible discounts on group sales could be granted to the users of Atom Tickets' app. Of course, the most impressive feature is the proposed usage of polling a group for showtime and movie preferences, helping decide where and when you and your group will be taking in the movie you've all agreed upon.
In particular, polling your group for showtime and movie preferences is the most ingenious part of this whole exercise. Everyone knows that the bigger the group, the harder it is to pick a movie to watch. Someone will want to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the fifth time, while another member of the group is keen on seeing Hail, Caesar! this weekend, and yet another will probably propose a screening of Deadpool. Not only can Atom Tickets tell you the preference of the group, it can also tell that one friend that their Ryan Reynolds crush will have to wait another weekend.
The movie-going experience depends on the convenience and comfort of the audience in order to keep itself alive. This is the sort of thinking that lead to the recent advent of assigned seating, as well as a pilot program to help make concession purchases easier for folks in select AMC and Regal Theaters. Now imagine if both of those aspects were combined with ticket sales and group planning tools, and you've got an idea of what Atom Tickets is aiming to do for the movie theater experience.
Atom Tickets' big plan to shake up the box office marketplace has drawn the attention of some very powerful players. More specifically, Disney, Fox, and Lionsgate are all backing a stake in the fledgling convenience service, with pilot programs set to test the new platform at select Regal and Carmike locations. Naturally, the absence of AMC Theaters' name from that list begs the question of whether they're abstaining from the program by choice, or if they were not approached to participate. Considering there's already an existing app built around their Stubs rewards program, it wouldn't be a stretch to see AMC Theaters trying to compete by making modifications to their own framework.
A more convenient movie-going experience is the new battlefield that theaters, studios, and ticketing apps will all be fighting on for the time being, and the war looks to be off to an exiting start. In the meantime, if you're in a market that's testing out Atom Tickets' new app, and you'd like to share your experience and feedback with us, hit the Comments section below!
