The past year has been very hard on cinemas, and so far, 2021 hasn’t been too different. Here at Vista, we’ve been focused on finding creative uses of our software and adapting the current technology to support exhibitors when they reopen, so they can do so confidently, knowing they took all available precautions.

When the Cinema Reopening Kit launched in April last year, our efforts provided great relief to many exhibitors offering much needed dynamic social distance seating, contact tracing, and self-service solutions. Under the Queue-Free F&B motto, we’ve looked at how we can use our Food & Beverage technology to recreate an authentic, yet safe experience that is as contactless as possible and allows moviegoers to enjoy delicious treats while watching the latest titles.

Since then, we’ve added countless features to expand our remote channels’ capabilities and enhance the guest experience. I recently had the chance to walk the Dine-In Cinema Summit participants through a quick demo of an end-to-end self-service food & beverage ordering process. If you weren’t at the event, here is how it went:

As a panellist in the Technology & IT session at the Dine-In Cinema Summit, I had the opportunity to connect (albeit digitally) with customers, partners, and fellow industry members. Representing Vista Cinema, we tackled 2021 technology trends and debated what tomorrow's cinemas look like.

With more cinemas interested in expanding their revenue from other entertainment avenues like bowling lanes, arcade, streaming, and alternative uses of their auditoriums, the need to support, integrate and monitor multiple systems to provide a unified guest experience is stronger than ever. I am well aware of this situation.

As a market leader and present in over 90 countries, Vista has been continuously challenged to integrate with various vendors to meet governmental regulations and local moviegoers' engagement expectations. In terms of monitoring, Horizon, our all-encompassing analytics solution, has been spearheading our efforts to increase data simplification and achieve a single view reporting, removing teams' need to spend weeks reconciling reports from multiple data sources.

In the race towards low touch and contactless experiences, remote sales channels play a crucial role. Homogenous experience across all sales channels will become the norm as it massively simplifies the operational side and can build loyalty through repeated positive interactions. Our white label Vista Mobile, which is also the star of our Dine-In Cinema Summit demo, has been widely acclaimed for its rich functionality. We've recently added tipping on Mobile, which led to a significant increase in tips added to a transaction. Also, I can't wait to share what Vista has been working on this past year for our Web and Kiosk solutions, so stay tuned for more details soon. 

Traditionally most F&B orders are placed in the first 30 min of a session. With this in mind, we built “Another Round” in Serve to empower waitstaff to provide the best customer service with simple prompts. Since its launch, we've received an overwhelming number of positive remarks from customers who have seen a real uptake in their order numbers and transaction value. Just this week, 15% of moviegoers whose order were managed via Serve opted for “Another Round”. 

There is no doubt that Serve is still the best option for cinema staff managing restaurants, cinema lounges, or bars. But if you’re looking for an end-to-end self-service F&B solution, you can learn more about Vista's capabilities in this solution overview.