When: 9:30 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Four area movie theaters: Oak View 24, 3555 S. 140th Plaza; Star Cinema 17, 3220 23rd Ave. in Council Bluffs; Midtown Crossing, 3201 Farnam St.; Village Pointe Cinema, 304 N. 174th St.
Tickets: $15. Advance tickets available at theater box offices and fathomevents.com
Information: Fathomevents.com
PLUS
World-Herald music critic Kevin Coffey will attend a screening and review the concert and movie theater experience on his blog, Rock Candy .
Tour No-Show Syndrome. It happens a lot.
It starts with a band scheduling a tour. Then fans get distraught when they learn the tour won’t be showing up in their town.
Those fans then check the schedule for the nearest city, looking into hotel and airfare. They usually end up sulking after they learn the high cost of traveling to see the group.
But things are changing a bit. Now fans have the option of attending a live broadcast of a tour performance in a local movie theater.
The Black Eyed Peas, for example, is putting on one of the hottest touring shows right now. And it’s not coming to Omaha.
But Tuesday, Omaha fans can treat themselves to a live broadcast of a Los Angeles performance from the big-time pop band at four area movie theaters.
Concert films such as the upcoming Black Eyed Peas broadcast are becoming more and more prevalent, in part due to the digital technology that allows theaters to broadcast live performances, many times in 3-D.
“We operate the largest in-theater digital network in North America. It allows us to digitally interconnect movie theaters across the country and, over the past several years, show several hundred events in movie theaters,” said Dan Diamond, vice president of NCM Fathom, the company delivering the Black Eyed Peas show to theaters.
Fathom, one of many companies that distribute concert films, has broadcast more than 50 live concerts, including performances from Garth Brooks, the Rolling Stones, Céline Dion, KISS, Linkin Park, Tom Petty, Bon Jovi and the Metropolitan Opera.
Concert films have become very popular among music fans, in part because of convenience and affordability. A ticket to see the live broadcast of the Black Eyed Peas costs $15, compared with $63.34 on average to see the band at an arena, according to concert industry Web site Pollstar.com.
It’s also the only chance for many fans to see their favorite group live in concert.
“Certain artists see this as a unique opportunity to connect on a very local and personal level and highlight one of the big shows from their tours,” Diamond said. “KISS has done three shows with us. People come to the theaters dressed up like KISS and it’s amazing. It’s a fun experience.”
For theaters with digital technology, concert films have also become bigger money-makers.
Six out of the 10 top-grossing concert films were made in the last decade, according to movie Web site boxofficemojo.com.
Concert films traditionally haven’t been big money-makers. But recent offerings from Michael Jackson, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers have smashed that tradition.
The top three concert films Jackson’s “This Is It,” Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” and “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” raked in a combined $156.5 million, comparable to scores of Hollywood films.
Audiences all over the world, including Omaha, saw “Hannah Montana.”
“We played ‘Hannah Montana’ everywhere in 3-D and it was a concert film. For Rave, that movie, because of our unique ability to screen it, behaved as if it were a $250 million movie,” said Jeremy Devine, vice president of marketing for Rave Theaters, which has 14 screens at Westroads Mall. “Our individual box office and our individual share was the size of a movie like ‘Avatar.’”
For fans, seeing concert films now is almost as good as seeing the band in person, especially with the help of 3-D technology.
Omahan Sean Purcell, 29, has seen Dave Matthews Band perform live more than 50 times, and also caught the band in the recent concert film “Larger Than Life ... in 3D.” There are two different types of concert films live events such as the Black Eyed Peas show and those that were made into theatrical films from previous concerts.
“Larger Than Life ... in 3D,” an example of the latter, showed for a week rather than one night. The film, with openers Gogol Bordello and Ben Harper and Relentless7, included footage from the bands taken at the 2009 Austin City Limits festival.
“It was a 3-D movie, so it was pretty cool. It was like being in the crowd fans’ hands in front of you in 3-D,” Purcell said.
Purcell said the sound in the theater was good and you could see the passion on the faces of the performers. He said it was almost like being at the show or at least being in the back of an arena and watching the show from a video monitor.
“But it was only $13,” he said. “I’d go see it again. It was a good time.”
Even though movie theater concerts are a lot like a real concert experience, most fans still treat them like a movie.
“A lot of (ticket sales) is walk-up, even though we’d really like people to buy in advance. People are still of a mindset that it’s a movie theater,” said Michelle Portillo, public relations manager at Fathom Events. “The Met (opera), we’ve trained those people to buy in advance because they sell out.”
Many theaters are branching out beyond the typical Hollywood fare at movie theaters. Once a theater has enabled the technology, it’s much easier to get concert films and other niche programming via satellite or a hard drive.
“We don’t want to operate only on Friday and Saturday nights,” said Rave Theaters’ Devine.
Having other programming, including sports and children’s cartoons, allows theaters to find new revenue by opening at hours they don’t normally do business.
Rave Westroads in Omaha, which is not airing the Black Eyed Peas concert, has aired University of Nebraska football games and other things. Other Rave theaters aired other concerts, the college football BCS Championship in 3-D, Met Opera, children’s shows, Ultimate Fighting Championship and Michael Jackson’s funeral. Theaters also will air the upcoming NCAA men’s basketball semifinals and finals in 3-D.
“There’s lots of economic infrastructure and technological infrastructure that’s allowing this to become a more viable impact in theater,” Devine explained. “Rave just took over a theater in Davenport, Iowa. Based on that theater’s configuration, we’re able to play, in the same week, the Black Eyed Peas, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Met Opera.
“I absolutely think it’s the wave of the future.”
Contact the writer:
444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com
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