Get Rentals Early for Labor Day
Get ready for long lines and empty shelves at your local video store. Labor Day weekend, one of the biggest rental periods of the year, is just around the corner.
“The public doesn’t often think of Labor Day as a big rental weekend, but it’s up there--though not quite as big--with the four-day Thanksgiving weekend and New Year’s Eve,” said Ron Castell, senior VP of the Blockbuster chain. “After a day or two, the shelves are picked clean. That’s the way it has been every Labor Day weekend.”
Why the big rental crunch then?
“It’s the last big weekend of summer,” said Lou Berg, who heads Houston’s Audio-Video Plus chain. “It symbolizes the end of summer fun. Parents and kids both figure they’ll be busy for the next few weeks, so they rent movies for the last leisurely weekend of the summer.”
This Labor Day weekend, some retailers predict, should be bigger than most. “With gas costing more, people won’t be traveling as much, so they’ll be renting more that weekend,” said Brad Burnside, who beefs up the staff of his Evanston, Ill., Video Adventure stores to handle the extra business. “People are more likely to stay home and watch. Also, George Bush is on TV a lot with depressing news about the Middle East. That makes people want to escape. They’ll turn off the TV and rent a video. During times like this video rentals are way up.”
Because of weather, it’s a bigger rental weekend in some regions than others. “If weather is very good, it cuts into Labor Day weekend business,” said Peter Margo, executive vice president of the Palmer Video chain. “In bad weather we do 30% better business.”
To take advantage of greater rental traffic, video companies often put out more releases than usual, realizing that retailers will be hungry for new titles. New rental releases set for the middle of next week include: “Bad Influence,” “Stella,” “Where the Heart Is,” “Lord of the Flies,” “Mountains of the Moon,” “Madhouse” and “Rosalie Goes Shopping.” The biggest title, though, is aimed at the sales market--MGM/UA’s “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” which will sell for $24.98.
There is generally a drastic drop-off in video rentals after Labor Day, with fewer releases the first weeks of September--and almost never any blockbuster rentals.
“In September, there are too many distractions, too many things for people to do other than watch rental movies,” explained Tower Video’s product manager John Thrasher. “Kids and parents are busy adjusting to the new school year. There’s the start of the new TV season. There’s the beginning of football and the excitement of the end of the baseball season. By the end of the month, people have settled into new patterns so they have more time to watch rental movies.”
All the retailers said that smart renters get their movies for the weekend by Thursday or early Friday. By Saturday, you may be out of luck.
