I have a good idea that you can NOT steal, but which you may hear. Are you ready? Here it goes:
They should put movie theaters in airports.
If you steal this idea you are LEGALLY bound to pay me.
I was in an airport not long ago and my flight was delayed. Not just a tiny delay, but four, five, six hours, the kind of widespread delays that have people sprawled out asleep on the floor of the LaGuardia terminal like refugees. You know what would have been a great thing to have right then to pass the time? A movie theater. Flight delayed? Watch a movie. Pass the time. Nice.
I would have even watched a crappy movie like The Purge: Election Year at that point, and I bet that the average member of the general public would as well.
If you build a movie theater in an airport you are setting yourself up for a world of success. First of all all of your customers are delayed in an airport with nothing to do. They’ll flock to your silver screens because their only alternative is sitting in an airport bar for hours on end which is significantly more expensive than any movie or Broadway play up to and including “Hamilton.” Second of all they’ll watch any old crap because what the hell else are they gonna watch? You can buy the world’s cheapest movies and sell em like the world’s best movies. You can play Back to the Future every day and the people will tolerate it without a peep. Not just because it’s an iconic vision of our youth but because if they don’t watch it then they don’t get to come in the airport movie theater. And where will they be then? Just in an airport—without popcorn.
Sometimes you go to a movie theater that’s in a small town, or is a little old, and there’s not any more than a handful of people in there. If you own such a movie theater, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to shut it down, pack it up, and relocate to a major “hub” airport that is beset by frequent travel delays due to our nation’s underfunded infrastructure and the monopolistic nature of the national air travel industry. Once there, you needn’t even make a “schedule” or show “previews” or live according to someone else’s “rules.” You just lay back until a bunch of flights get canceled, toss open the doors, and show Back to the Future. Twenty bucks a head? A bargain by airport standards. Less than the cost of four bags of snack chips from Hudson News. Ten bucks for popcorn? A good deal for the stranded traveler desperate to make time pass by putting food into his mouth, for hours.
A movie theater in the airport would be very successful. Don’t say there are no good business ideas on the internet. There are. This idea, and becoming a Rubio’s Fish Taco franchisee.