Film booking

Booking is two things at once. It is access — persuading a distributor to give you the title, which is not automatic and in some markets is constrained by clearance. And it is terms — the film rental percentage, the minimum run length, any guarantee, and how many screens and performances you commit to.

Large circuits employ bookers full time. Small independents either do it themselves or use a booking agent who represents several venues, which buys leverage a single site does not have on its own.

The commitment matters more than operators expect. Agreeing a two-week hold on a title that dies after four days costs you the screen for the second week, and that opportunity cost rarely appears in anyone's model.

On a major studio title in its opening week, very little. The terms are close to standard, the distributor has more demand than screens, and a single site has no leverage.

On everything else, considerably more than most independents assume. Independent distributors, documentary, foreign-language, repertory and event cinema are all booked by conversation rather than by schedule, and the terms reflect what you can actually deliver. A venue that reliably turns out an audience for a specific kind of film is worth more to a specialist distributor than a bigger venue that does not.

That is the practical argument for building a programming identity: it is the only thing that gives a small cinema negotiating position.