NOW PLAYING IN ANCIENT GHENT . . . THE FUTURE OF MOVIE EXHIBITION

Spending a couple of days in this quiet city about 30 miles northwest of Brussels is like spending a couple of days in a history book.

You can stay in a 15th-Century hotel with a view of a 14th-Century church and walk a few blocks to a 12th-Century fort. You can walk down cobblestone streets and cross centuries-old masonry bridges.

Ask any of the locals and they’ll proudly tell you that the area was settled during the Roman Empire and was a bustling European weaving center during the Middle Ages. Most of the ornate buildings of Ghent--stained and weathered to a dignified gray-brown hue--were built during the 400 years between the 13th and 17th centuries.

It is as if the people of Ghent decided to turn off the future around 1800 and live in the past.

But, like a giant movie set, Ghent’s antique facade is an illusion. There is a modern pulse beating beneath the stone and mortar, and in one of the oddest juxtapositions of all, it is here that you will find the future of motion-picture exhibition.

On a quiet tree-lined street running along the Schelde River, in a former industrial area where many of Europe’s finest fabrics were woven during the Middle Ages, is Decascoop, a 12-screen super theater that is likely the most modern and most efficient movie complex in the world.

If you’re just looking for an ordinary theater, you can drive right past Decascoop, even though the 5-year-old, sharp-angled building stands out dramatically from the historical warehouses flanking it.

But no rooftop billboards--no glaring Stallone or snarling Schwarzenegger--scar the skyline. No marquee stimulates impulse buys. And, unless you happen to drive by just before they open the doors each afternoon, there are no lines.

“In Belgium, people don’t like to line up for anything,” says Decascoop owner Albert Bert. “If they wait five minutes, they start complaining. So we guarantee that they won’t have to wait five minutes.”

In that comment is the key to the success of an operation that has defied the downward European box-office trend and turned relatively small Ghent (population: 218,000) into one of the most moviegoing cities in the world. It is a success story that every American theater operator should study.

Since Decascoop was built in 1981, that area’s ticket sales have gone up 50% and Ghent has gone from fifth to second (behind Brussels) on Belgium’s list of busiest movie markets. This one complex is now doing 5% of the country’s theater business, selling more than one million tickets a year.

Although it has been in profit since its third year, Decascoop is still a work-in-progress, says Bert. There are two more theaters to be added, and he is awaiting county approval to build a pedestrian bridge over the Schelde, which will provide another 500 free parking spaces for his patrons (there are nearly that many spaces, also free, behind the theater).

The major uncompleted work is in the basement level of the three-story complex, where the admittedly Hollywood-struck Bert intends to add a dozen movie-theme restaurants and bars to the one--called the Beverly, after Beverly Hills--already operating. On the immediate constructionschedule is Rick’s Cafe, a replica of Humphrey Bogart’s mythical gin joint in “Casablanca.”

As for the theaters that are already here, they are wide-screen, high-ceilinged and designed to assure everyone unobstructed views from the comfort of an extra-wide double arm-rest seats.

French-designed seats. American-engineered sound systems. German-made projectors. Bert and his 30-year-old son, Joost, the operational manager of Decascoop, have traveled all over the world outfitting their theaters, and the results are more than covering their expenses.

Bert says he has to sell from 12,000 to 15,000 tickets a week (average ticket price: about $3.50) to cover his overhead. Last year, his weekly average was 21,000 customers.

Decascoop has 3,600 seats spread among its 12 theaters (the smallest room has 69 seats, the largest has 600) and sellouts are common during weekends. The one-day record, set Easter Sunday, is 12,000 customers.

“It is the jewel of European theaters,” says Raf Butstraen, film critic for the Standard, a Brussels-based national newspaper. “Decascoop is part of the vocabulary. People are more likely to say, ‘Let’s go to Decascoop’ than ‘Let’s go see “Out of Africa.” ’ “

Decascoop’s secret is no secret at all. It’s common sense parlayed to commitment and showmanship. To get people into theaters and away from their television sets, Bert says, you have to “spoil them, make it easy for them” and give them a movie experience they’ll never get at home.

Most American exhibitors think a rare movie experience is one where you can get a fresh batch of nachos. To Bert, it is a combination of convenience, first-run movies and state-of-the-art exhibition. And it all costs money.

When Bert first went to his bankers and told them of his plan to raze a centuries-old Ghent mill and build a $50-million theater complex, they looked at him as if he were Chris Columbus asking for three good ships and a decent compass.

“They didn’t see much future in movie theaters, especially one this expensive,” Bert says. “I had to find the money somewhere else.”

Looking back now, Bert says his bankers consider him something of a visionary, and though overall theatrical business in Europe is still on a downward slide, he believes financing will be easier to come by when he tries to outdo himself with an even bigger complex.

“For the next 15 years, it will be facilities like this that will survive,” he says. “With the costs of running theaters and the competition from so many places, it would be foolish to take old theaters and convert them.”

In the meantime, here is a look at how you could be going to the movies if you lived in Ghent, or if American exhibitors were as interested in satisfying their customers as the Berts are.

The Box Office: If you’re a student, or over 65, you rate a discount of about 30%. If you are neither, or in a hurry, you can go through an express lane and pay full price.

The Lobby: It is the length of a football field. A candy/popcorn concession, connected with a wine/beer bar (the legal drinking age in Belgium is 16), runs nearly halfway down one side.

There is no price gouging at the stands, either. Bert has an advantage over American exhibitors in not having to pay outrageous film rental fees to distributors (the most he has to pay is 55%, compared to the 70%-80% commonly demanded in the States), so he doesn’t have to make his living on concession sales.

No matter when you get to the theater, you don’t wait outside. You can dally as long as you like in the lobby, watching TV monitors that serve as kinetic wall decor. There is a silent monitor over every theater entrance, broadcasting what is being shown in that theater. There are also two banks of monitors, showing all 12 movies in giant mosaics.

(You don’t call this a service? Imagine the trouble you would have saved just getting a glimpse of “Rocky IV.”)

At the far end of the lobby, there are continuous trailers, shown with a 1954 projector that is as much of a museum piece as a 1954 Packard Clipper (about the same size too).

The Cleanliness: The Berts visit the United States every year, hoping to pick up tips from other exhibitors, but the one you’ll notice came from Disney World. Ushers use scoop pails and brooms to constantly rake up debris from the lobby carpet.

“The Disney people told us that they get more good letters about the cleanliness of their parks than anything else,” says Joost Bert. “What we learned is that when people see you trying to keep the floor clean, they stop throwing things on it.”

The Movies: Only first-run movies are shown at Decascoop, and 95% are American, shown with both Flemish and French subtitles. On the current schedule: “Out of Africa,” “Jewel of the Nile,” “To Live and Die in L.A.” and “Spies Like Us.”

(Alas, there are also about 10 minutes of commercials before each show, a distasteful practice that is common throughout Europe.)

The Theaters: Two theaters have 70-millimeter projectors (there is only one other in the country), and 10 have Dolby stereo sound. In the largest room, where “Out of Africa” is playing, there are 600 seats and about 40 speakers, including 20 surround speakers in the ceiling alone.

In the projection room, which is also the length of a football field, there is a film conveyor system that allows management to shift schedules at the last minute and show one movie in two theaters almost simultaneously.

Screen sizes range from about 40 to 70 feet in the 10 main level theaters. Even in the two small theaters, the screens are more than 20 feet wide.

Bert estimates he has about $5 million invested in projection and sound equipment alone.

The Promotions: Albert Bert, whose father and grandfather were theater operators before him, says he grew up when all an exhibitor had to do was put out a one-sheet (movie poster) and take money. Then came television, and the only people who survived were the showmen, those who could beat the bushes, then dance for whoever came out.

At Decascoop, there are constant promotions. Usherettes routinely dress according to the featured film’s theme (they were last seen getting into safari suits and pith helmets for “Out of Africa”), and occasionally, patrons get something extra.

For the first two nights of “Stop Making Sense,” the Talking Heads’ concert film, the Berts constructed dance stages over the seats, bathed them in strobes, and encouraged the audience to get up and boogie to the movie.

Sometimes, management gets something extra, too. For “Silverado,” they had three cowboys ride into the theater on horseback, guns blazing. The horses were used to the guns, apparently, but not the applause they received, and they left a trail that not even the experts at Disney World would have been keen to follow.

To see another movie, you go outside and go through the line again.

Bert, competing in a polylingual country where local TV reception brings in stations from four surrounding countries, says he is not at all worried about television or the videocassette revolution.

“Cinema and video are two different things,” he says. “It’s like dancing. People can dance at home, but they go out. People eat and drink at home, but they go out. Give them a reason and they’ll go out. That’s what we (exhibitors) have to do.”