I was recently invited by AMC Theatres to attend their Best Picture Showcase event at a local theater. The event was a marathon showing of the 5 movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Normal movies goers were charged $30 for all five movies, which included a free bag of popcorn to boot.

AMC wanted to do a social media outreach, so they contacted several local bloggers and Twitter folks from cities around the country.  I was able to bring a friend, so I asked Ronald Lewis to tag along.

I am not going to recap the movies, because I’m not an especially talented movie reviewer.  However, as a novice movie critic, I can honestly say that I enjoyed them all.  If you’re interested, you can click here see my see my actual Twitter comments.

What AMC Did Well

The event went well, although it seemed  a little disorganized at first because the people at the ticket counter had no idea who I was, let alone what a blogger was.   Once that was straightened out and we got our cool “backstage passes,” we went in to the theater and found our reserved seats. AMC even presented the bloggers with lunch, which was a much appreciated touch.   We really got the cool VIP treatment. I was also impressed that AMC already had the Twitter hashtag #amcbps established for us, which showed forward thinking in the event planning.

During the intermissions between movies, the theater manager played trivia games and handed out prizes.  I am a floor and social media geek, but not a movie geek. The theater was really full of die-hard movie goers, who really had film and cinema knowledge beyond anything I have ever heard.   The event was  really cool, and I look forward to participating in the event next year.

What AMC Could Improve Next Year

I think AMC’s social media outreach was great, but for next year I would like to make a few suggestions on how they can improve:

• Have Dinner for Guests Available - Bring in a buffet for the patrons, and include it as part of the package. There wasn’t enough time to go to a restaurant between movies,  and spending 15 hours eating nachos and popcorn might not agree with everyone.
• Set Aside Some Networking Time - I barely got to meet the other bloggers that were attending.  It would have been great to socialize and mingle with them.
• Loyalty Program - During intermission, there was no mention of an AMC loyalty program.  This captive audience was full of AMC’s best customers and if the manager had mentioned a “discount” loyalty pass to their “most valued” customers, they may have gotten some new ones.
• Get More Bloggers and Get them Earlier - It seems there were only a few of us invited to the event.  However, there were many empty seats.  I think a whole row of bloggers and tweeters could have created a ton of buzz.  If the bloggers were organized 2 weeks a head of time, we could have sold the place out.
• Get The Bloggers To Run Contests - I would have loved it if the trivia questions incorporated bloggers before the event.  We could have run promotions to give away passes based on Twitter/Blog comments and response.  Freebies leave people warm and fuzzy, and might have also filled seats and sold more nachos.

I am so glad that AMC is seeing that social media is relevent to their industry and are making good faith efforts to engage thier customers on that level.  Great job and kudos to AMC.