Alamo Drafthouse subscription plan: details and price of MoviePass competitor

Alamo Drafthouse’s
Yonkers, New York location.
Kathy
Tran

• Theater chain Alamo Drafthouse is beta testing its
  movie ticket subscription service, Alamo Season Pass.
• Business Insider got details about the plan from
  Drafthouse chief technology officer, Mikey Trafton.
• The pass is only being used by a few hundred people at
  the chain’s Yonkers, New York location, but over 40,000 are on
  a waitlist to use the pass (the beta is less than a month
  old).
• Currently, the subscription price is between $15 and
  $20 for unlimited 2D and 3D films (including going back and
  seeing the same movie as many times as you want).
• Alamo Season Pass will be expanding to other locations
  in the future, however, Trafton said there will be many changes
  to the plan during the beta phase before it’s rolled out to all
  Drafthouse theaters.

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Since MoviePass disrupted the move-theater business last summer
by offering a $10-a-month subscription, theater owners have taken
a more serious look at launching their own plans.

That includes a theater chain with some of the most loyal
followers in the country: Alamo Drafthouse. 

The chain is known best for being one of the first in the US to
offer its patrons food and alcohol while watching films. And
Drafthouse is always looking for out-of-the-box ideas to
showcase. That can be anything from doing female-only screenings
last year of the first “Wonder Woman” movie to having a four-course meal while watching
“Pineapple Express,” which is happening later this month at
its Brooklyn, New York location.

But for a company that loves to do things as big and outlandish
as its homegrown Austin, Texas roots, Drafthouse has been very
methodical about its movie-ticket subscription service, Alamo Season Pass. 

Launched in a beta version on July 18 at its Yonkers, New York
location, Drafthouse has been generally mum about the pass, other
than stating that for an undisclosed monthly free subscribers can
see unlimited films through its app, and can add on additional
tickets. 

However, after Business Insider had a chat with Drafthouse’s
chief technology officer, Mikey Trafton, we now know more details
about Alamo Season Pass and how much its customers are using it.

According to Trafton, a few hundred people are currently using
Alamo Season Pass at its Yonkers theater, but that’s not because
it’s having trouble finding subscribers. In less than a month,
over 40,000 people have signed up for a waitlist for Alamo
Season Pass, according to Trafton. Some of them are those waiting
to be invited to use the service in Yonkers, but many are people
in other parts of the country. 

“We’re going to roll it out and test it in other cities in the
future,” Trafton told Business Insider. “We’re using the waitlist
to figure out the next locations we should test at.”  

Trafton was very adamant that Alamo Season Pass is still in a
beta version, and the plan will be tweaked often to figure out
the best offer for when it’s officially rolled out. But
currently, at the Yonkers location, the pass has a monthly fee
between $15 and $20 for unlimited films, which includes seeing
the same movie as many times as you want. 

Through the Drafthouse app you can pick the movie and showtime
you want, reserve your seat (this doesn’t need to be done at the
movie theater, and you can do it days in advance), and add any
additional tickets.

“You can just walk right into the theater and sit down,” Trafton
said, after you’re done selecting the movie on the app. “You
don’t have to stop at the box office, there’s no credit cards
that you have to fiddle with, it’s a completely seamless
experience.”

Alamo Season Pass currently doesn’t offer food or beverage deals,
and it’s only for standard-format 2D films and 3D tickets (but
not for any special Drafthouse screenings that have a higher
ticket price).

Trafton said the number of subscribers using the pass at the
Yonkers location will increase over time. On a weekly basis,
people on the waitlist in Yonkers are receiving email invites to
take part. The price and features are included on the email —
remember, they are beta testing, so the monthly price and options
may change — and the invitee is given two weeks to agree to take
part.

Everyone dressed up so see
the 2008 Will Ferrell comedy “Semi-Pro” at the Alamo
Drafthouse.
Alamo
Drafthouse

Trafton said the biggest takeaway so far has been the mix of
films people are seeing with the pass.

“Our number one movie people are seeing with Season Pass is
‘Mission: Impossible — Fallout,’ but our number two movie is
‘Eighth Grade,'” Trafton said, referring to
the acclaimed A24 release. “One of the big goals for having a
subscription is to share independent films that we really think
are the lifeblood of cinema and we love these films and want to
share them with as many people as possible. Our hypothesis is
that if we can reduce the friction to seeing films that people
will take a chance on a movie that they didn’t hear about as much
as one of the big films. It’s very early data, but that’s really
great.”

The reason Drafthouse is being so methodical about rolling
out Alamo Season Pass is because the company wants to have a
price point and options that are ideal for the Drafthouse
moviegoer, but also make business sense.

“If you price it too high the causal moviegoer won’t be
interested and if you go too low you’ll drive yourself out of
business from overuse,” Trafton said. “The key variable is the
price and then we have to determine what our members control,
which is their behaviors, how often they see films.”

Trafton said it’s hard to figure that out now because,
comparing it to a gym membership, Season Pass is in a binge
period (Trafton said the most pass members are going right now is
every three days on average). He said it will take months to see
how the members use it in normal behavior. In that time, Season
Pass may be rolled out to other locations for beta testing, but
it’s “going to be a while,” Trafton said, before the subscription
plan is available at all 29 Drafthouse locations around the
country. 

“People love it,” Trafton said of the reaction to Season Pass so
far. “The app has been solid and easy to use, the response has
been over the moon.”