The Business of Movies in Mt. Pleasant

by Jason Antoniewicz

Despite emerging competition and a slowing economy, movie theaters and movie rental locations in Mt. Pleasant are keeping customers with money-saving incentives.

Celebration Cinema, located at 4935 E. Pickard, provides several reasons for customers to move their movie dollar to their location.

"We have special student discounts that we offer - coupons exclusively for college students," said Chris Couling, general manager of the Mt. Pleasant Celebration location.

On Sunday nights, the movie theater joins forces with radio station WCFX to screen hit films of the past few years for only $2.95 per ticket.

"It sells out almost every week," Couling said.

Attendance and spending at Celebration was normal through the summer, with the trend continuing into the fall. Even with gas prices on the rise, employees there continue to see that people want to be entertained.

"Even though they can rent DVDs and watch them on their HD players at home, it's still not quite the experience of going out to a theater," Couling said.

If customers are not swayed into leaving their home, they can still get more with their money by patronizing Family Video.

"We have the cheapest prices in town, and we always have deals going on," said Leah Christian, employee at the rental chain for two years.

Located at 317 N. Mission St., Family Video's prices and policies are customer friendly.

"On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, whenever you rent a new release, you get a dollar movie free," Christian said.

New customers get 50 percent off rentals and purchases for the first month of their Family Video membership.

Christian said Family Video is keeping up with technology, testing new movie mediums such as Blu-Ray discs for durability.

Chris Couling of Celebration Cinema also explained how the business of operating a theater is changing.

"We're just trying to do more things with the digital projector technology that we couldn't do before with film," Couling said.

Live broadcasts of sporting events and Broadway shows, as well as improved 3-D technology, are some of the things in development.

"There's a lot of things in the future of our company and the industry as a whole," Couling said.