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bill watson wrote....we have seen our Combination/IMAX only ratio reverse
with
> this film. That is, many people are coming for just the IMAX Theater and
> skipping exhibits.

i had a similar experience to bill's, albeit different circumstances, while
at The Science Place in Dallas.  Once a year, because of its physical
location, Science Place literally becomes part of The State Fair of Texas.
Before and after installation of Imax, we decided to open exhibit galleries
free during fair, reasoning that more people who were exposed to our
product, the more we would increase attendance. (and we're talking of having
approximately 50,000 to 100,000 visitors through our doors in 3 weeks time.)

wrong.  the reason why?  nobody knows- but here's an educated guess. the
families, individuals, etc. who came during the fair did not meet our usual
demographic.  which is to say, in dallas at least, there is a quantitative
profile of science center visitors with regard to income, education, who is
the family decision maker, is it a sponsored visits, etc.

before someone says, yeah, but did you try 'this or that', we're talking a
period of  5+ years of frustrated experimentation.

my conclusion was you are better off trying to increase penetration into
your target market than pinning your hopes on developing a whole new
audience.

*most important* if you aren't using a simple survey instrument to pinpoint
the reason why your nascar'ers won't go to your exhibits, you're missing an
opportunity to better define your audience.

finally, early on in the days of imax it was probably true they were
synergistic - they increased penetration into target market.  that was the
early days.  it is no longer a novelty and whatever improvement it made in
capturing more target audience is over and done with a while ago.

it is a new reality that i understand more than one institution with an
imax, are struggling with these days.

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