MapMuse - Locate AMC Theatres Near You

...pictures were the future of the entertainment industry. His small chain of single-screen theatres was moderately successful. Durwood's son, Stanley, subsequently attended Harvard University and served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. In 1960, Stan Durwood took control of Durwood Theatres, renamed it American Multi-Cinema, and began to apply military management and the insights of management science to revolutionize the movie theatre industry. As he later explained to Variety, "We needed to define what our company was doing in the (exhibition) business. My dad wasn't that organized." AMC opened the first American multiplex (a two-screen facility) in 1963 in Kansas City. Durwood later claimed that "in 1962 he was standing in the lobby of his 600-seat Roxy in Kansas City mulling over its poor grosses when he realized he could double his box office by adding a second screen and still operate with the same size staff."[3] This insight arises from the fact that the real-time labor demands of a movie theatre are not constant. Rather, they come in bursts at the start and end of the movie. At the start, a large number of employees have to sell tickets, process tickets at an access point, sell food at the concession stand (a theatre's primary profit center), make sure the theatre is not overcrowded, and run the film projector. While the movie plays, a small number of employees are needed for security and access control, while the others are relatively idle. At the end of the movie, a number of employees are needed to clean the theatre for the next showing. When the start times for movie showings in several physically connected auditoriums are staggered correctly, one team can continually keep all of them operational with minimal downtime.