The case for better-seats-cost-more movie tickets

Let’s say I want to take myself to see Magic Mike’s Last Dance on Friday at the AMC 34th Street theater in Manhattan. Could happen! And if it does, I have two options: I can buy a regular ticket for $26.88. Or I can pick a seat in the middle of the theater and pay … $1 more.

If this was a Knicks game or a Broadway show, this would be no big deal: Consumers are very familiar with the idea of paying more, or less, for seats based on desirability and demand: Front-row tickets for Taylor Swift cost thousands of dollars; nosebleeds to see Foreigner in Las Vegas are more affordable.

But for the beleaguered movie business, this is a new idea. AMC Theatres, the world’s largest movie theater chain, announced their “Sightline” plan earlier this week: Most tickets sell for the regular price, but a limited number of seats in the center of the theater will cost $1 or $2 more per ticket. It’s debuting the plan this weekend at some of its locations in New York, Chicago, and Kansas City.

It also rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Which is presumably why AMC CEO Adam Aron, whose company announced the program on February 6, took to Twitter two days later to defend it, chalking the move up to “inflationary times.”