Alamo Drafthouse Has 40,000 Names On It's Season Pass Subscription Service Waitlist

For those lucky enough to live near any of the 29 Alamo Drafthouse cinemas in the US, we have some good news for you. In the future, it looks like Drafthouse is going to have a MoviePass-esque subscription service for you to purchase, and unlike the aforementioned dumpster fire, it sounds like the folks at Drafthouse know what they’re doing.

In a new Business Insider report about the company’s current beta testing for the subscription service, all signs point to the Alamo Season Pass being a hugely popular service that could help the small theater chain, best known for its food and drink options, special screenings, and pro-filmgoer theater rules.

READ MORE: MoviePass Has Lied, Misled, Cheated, & Failed Customers Repeatedly And F*ck It, I’m Out

The report claims that current testing includes a few hundred people using the Season Pass for the chain’s Yonkers location. According to an executive at the Alamo Drafthouse, the company is getting tons of useful information that will help the chain understand the basics of what they should offer to the general public.

And it appears that the small number of current testers says nothing about interest in the program. The Drafthouse says there is a waitlist of approximately 40,000 people nationwide attempting to get into the beta testing program.

“We’re going to roll it out and test it in other cities in the future,” said Drafthouse’s chief technology officer, Mikey Trafton. “We’re using the waitlist to figure out the next locations we should test at.”

So, how does the Alamo Season Pass work? As smoothly and intuitively as you’d probably hope is the short answer. However, the detailed explanation is that a subscriber pays a fee (early price points suggest between $15 and $20 per month) to access an unlimited number of movies per month. The user goes on the app, selects the film/time, selects their seat, and purchases any additional tickets they may want. From there, they walk into the theater, bypass the box office, and go sit down in the seat.

“You can just walk right into the theater and sit down,” Trafton continued. “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.”

And unlike MoviePass, who said the main goal of the company at the beginning was to collect/sell user data, Alamo Drafthouse is hoping the Season Pass encourages people to come to check out the various movies available at the theater. In fact, in early testing, the chain has noticed that blockbusters are definitely popular, but users are also checking out some of the indie selections, as well.

“Our number one movie people are seeing with Season Pass is ‘Mission: Impossible — Fallout,’ but our number two movie is ‘Eighth Grade,'” the executive said. “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 movies and want to share them with as many people as possible. Our hypothesis is that if we can reduce the friction to seeing movies 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.”

READ MORE: As MoviePass Struggles To Survive, AMC Gloats Its Subscription Service Has “Far Exceeded” Projections

And in a subtle shade-throwing moment, Trafton explained why they are reluctant to release final pricing or timeline yet, alluding to MoviePass’ money-making troubles. “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,” he 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 movies.”

As for how often, Trafton says that users in the testing are seeing films every three days, on average.

Now, like we said at the beginning, if you’re lucky enough to live near any of the 29 locations, you’re probably wondering when this Season Pass will be available to the general public. The good news is that it’s coming. The bad news is that it might not be soon, as Trafton says it’s “going to be a while” before it’s rolled out completely.

All that being said, it looks like Alamo Drafthouse, and AMC before them, are using the MoviePass failed experiment to help grow their own businesses and adapt to the future.