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Filmgrail + COMPESO
In German-speaking exhibition, COMPESO is often simply what the cinema runs. The question is rarely whether to replace it, and almost always what to put in front of it.
What running Filmgrail on COMPESO means
COMPESO has specialised in cinema ticketing and concession sales for decades and describes itself as the market leader in Germany. Cinemas running it have well-established process, and the local specifics — Kinoticket conventions, German payment habits, the reporting a German operator expects — are baked in.
Filmgrail does not touch any of that. We read programme, session, seating and pricing data, take over the website, the native apps, the content and the online purchase, and write the completed order back into COMPESO so the box office record stays single.
What moves between the two systems
Nothing is re-keyed. The integration reads what your box office already knows and writes back what the moviegoer just did.
Films and metadata
Titles, synopses, running times, certificates, cast, genres and release dates, enriched with artwork and trailers so film pages are not a line of text and a poster.
Sessions and showtimes
Every performance with its screen, format, language, subtitle and accessibility attributes, updated as the schedule changes rather than overnight.
Seat maps and availability
Live hall layouts with holds, house seats, wheelchair spaces and companion seating rendered exactly as they exist in the box office.
Ticket types and pricing
Adult, child, concession, member and loyalty pricing, plus surcharges and booking fees, applied by your own rules rather than duplicated in a second price list.
The completed order
Seats, ticket types, amounts and payment reference written back so the sale appears in your daily reports alongside the counter.
Reconciliation
A matching report on both sides so finance can tie the digital channel to the box office totals without a spreadsheet.
What your moviegoers get
- A website built to sell, not to inform. Programme, film pages, showtimes, seat selection and checkout on one fast, mobile-first site you control through a CMS rather than a ticket iframe bolted onto a brochure page.
- Native iOS and Android apps. Not a wrapper around your booking page. Autoplaying trailers, stories, watchlists, personalised showtimes and push — the things that make somebody open the app in a week when they are not buying.
- One CMS for both. Films, showtimes, articles, carousels, banners, gift cards, push campaigns and loyalty edited once and published to web and app together.
- A checkout that finishes. Seat maps, ticket types, fees, gift cards, value cards and saved payment in a flow measured on completion rate rather than on feature count.
- Moviegoer identity. Nine out of ten end users on the platform create a profile, which turns anonymous transactions into a customer base you can segment, target and measure.
- Audience data you can act on. Demographics, engagement, watchlists, ratings, sessions and digital box office in one view, joined across site and app.
What stays in COMPESO
Ticketing, concessions, counter hardware, pricing and the full reporting stack, along with the local conventions and payment arrangements your operation depends on.
Who owns what
The division of responsibility between COMPESO and Filmgrail, written out so nobody discovers it in month three.
| Area | COMPESO | Filmgrail |
|---|---|---|
| Programme and scheduling | Source of truth | Reads and publishes |
| Seat maps and inventory | Source of truth | Reads and renders |
| Ticket types and pricing rules | Source of truth | Applies at checkout |
| Counter and kiosk sales | Owns | Not involved |
| Website and native apps | Not involved | Owns |
| Online checkout and payment flow | Receives the completed sale | Owns the experience |
| Content, campaigns and push | Not involved | Owns |
| Moviegoer profiles and loyalty | Where the system provides it | Owns the digital layer |
| Box office reporting and settlement | Source of truth | Reconciles against it |
The point of the split is that your finance and operations reporting never moves. Every online sale lands back in your box office as an ordinary transaction, against the same ticket types and the same price rules the counter uses.
How a project actually runs
First we look at what your deployment exposes. That is a short technical conversation, not a discovery workshop, and it ends with a straight answer about whether the integration is a week of work or a quarter of it.
Then the build: your branding, your content model, your seat maps, your ticket types, your checkout rules. You review it on a staging site against your real programme, not a demo dataset.
Then launch, with your old URLs redirected rather than dropped so the search visibility you have built comes with you. Apps follow the site, usually a few weeks behind, because the CMS and the content are shared and there is no point shipping an empty app.
Nothing in that sequence requires you to touch the box office, which is why the risk of trying it is so much lower than it feels.
Frequently asked questions
Does Filmgrail support German-language sites and apps?
Yes. The platform is multilingual, and a cinema can run its site and apps in German, in a second language, or in both with a language switch.
Do we have to change how we take payment?
No. Filmgrail sells through your own merchant arrangement rather than acting as merchant of record, so your payment relationships and settlement stay as they are.
Will our COMPESO reports still be complete?
Yes. Online orders are written back against the same sessions, ticket types and price rules, so the reports your team pulls today continue to reflect all sales.
Is Filmgrail used outside the Nordics?
Yes. The platform runs cinemas and festivals in several markets, and the company has offices in Oslo, Wilmington and Istanbul.
What about GDPR?
Moviegoer data is handled under GDPR, and the moviegoer profile is built from activity on your own site and apps with consent. The specifics belong in a written data processing agreement, which we provide.
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