Ticket Sites End Hassles, Let Viewers Focus on Big Picture

Arriving at a movie theater an hour before the show is almost standard procedure in Southern California. But even then, securing tickets isn’t always guaranteed.

Online movie ticketing services eliminate long waits at the box office. Convenience comes at a price, usually about a buck per ticket. Search listings at local theaters, find a flick and pay for the tickets online with a credit card. Then pick them up at the theater and enjoy the show.

Some Web sites even offer print-at-home tickets and are looking at new services--from pre-ordered popcorn to priority seating.

But online ticketing services don’t offer tickets to the same theaters. Although they include most theaters’ listings, theater chains sign contracts with the ticketing services that prevent them from selling tickets on multiple sites.

There are about 35,000 movie screens in the country, said John Singh, spokesman for online ticketer Fandango. About 11,000 sell tickets online.

Fandango, at https://www.fandango.com, offers tickets for about 5,000 screens, including those at Century Theatres, Edwards Cinemas, General Cinemas and Loews Cineplex.

MovieTickets.com, at https://www.movietickets.com, also boasts about 5,000 screens. The site, which sells tickets for half a dozen major chains, including AMC Theatres, offers tickets through Yahoo, at https://www.yahoo.com, as well.

AOL Moviefone, at https://www.moviefone.com, features films at theaters such as Mann, United Artists and Imax.

Visitors to MovieTickets.com and Moviefone can access the databases of both sites, a total of 8,000 screens, said Mitchell Rubenstein, co-chief executive of MovieTickets.com.

A Moviefone user, for example, can browse the show times at AMC Theatres, though tickets are sold only through MovieTickets.com. But it’s seamless and most users won’t even notice.

“Consumers do not want to do a homework assignment to find out which movie sites have which movie tickets,” said Tommy McGloin, senior vice president and general manager of AOL Moviefone.

Most major theater chains offer tickets through one of these three sites, but smaller, independent theaters aren’t as likely to sell online.

Moviegoers can look up their schedules on the Internet, but they still have to stand in line at the box office to see the show.

In addition to selling tickets online, some services enable customers to print their tickets from the Internet at home. The bar-coded tickets are scanned at the theater for admittance.

Fandango expects to have print-at-home ticketing capabilities at nearly 60 theaters around the country by the end of the month. Although the service is not yet offered in Southern California, Fandango plans to introduce it at one Orange County theater by the end of the year.

MovieTickets.com also offers the feature and will be implementing it locally by the end of the year. AOL Moviefone is testing its system.

Ticketing services also are exploring additional features such as prepaying for concessions or purchasing priority or reserved seating online.

Although online ticket purchases are a small portion of total tickets sold--Rubenstein estimates about 2%--those in the industry expect them to grow.

“In a lot of ways, what we sell is assurance for the moviegoer that they are not going to get sold out,” Singh said.

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Christine Frey covers personal technology. She can be reached atchristine.frey@latimes.com.