ShoEast Off To Gloomy Start

As exhibitors from across the nation come together today for the 15th annual ShoEast convention, it appears the mood will be appropriate to the bleak setting of Atlantic City, New Jersey, where the confab will be held for the last time. Movie theatre operators are struggling to hold the confidence of investors and financiers as the heavy costs of rebuilding their circuits eats into earnings from another record summer at the boxoffice. ""There's the paradox of unprecedented boxoffice levels - where we are again going to see the highest number of admissions in 40 years - but for a variety of reasons, those dollars are not flowing through to the bottom line,"" said Bill Kartozian, the outgoing president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, who will make his last convention appearance as NATO chief on Wednesday morning. Like other industry observers, Kartozian sees an industry struggling with economics of the rapid construction of massive new theatres and the implied redundancy of hundreds of older auditoriums. ""The megaplexes are knocking out the multiplexes,"" he said.Source: The Hollywood Reporter