For over 20 years, Cinebar has been providing unforgettable dine-in experiences in Australia. Between their long-running Cinebar Rosalie Village, and their newer cinema at Coolangatta, Cinebar operate 11 full-service dine-in cinema screens.

With sophisticated F&B offerings and fully licensed bars at each location, Cinebar were looking to empower their moviegoers with greater self-service, enhance their operational efficiency, and highlight their unique offering through revitalised digital channels.

Uplifting spend and recognition with new digital channels

As David Taylor, Owner of Cinebar, explained, revitalising their digital channels with Vista Cloud has made a great impact, delivering a 25% increase in concession sales at their Coolangatta site. “Our previous website didn’t offer F&B in the booking flow,” David said, “so adding that became an immediate advantage with Vista Cloud.”

Now, moviegoers can pre-order food and beverages alongside their tickets online, including Cinebar’s unique cocktails themed to new releases, all to be delivered directly to their table during the movie.

Their new website and mobile app—built with Vista Cloud’s Digital Enablement solution, Lumos—has also enabled Cinebar to further highlight their unique value proposition. “At our newer location, Coolangatta,” David explained, “we’re focused on informing locals about what makes us different. The moviegoers there are more of the ‘popcorn and pepsi’ crowd. So we’re asking, how do we shift them into the pizza and cocktails crowd?”

Introducing F&B to their booking flow was a major boost, but smaller details such as adding iconography have helped highlight their offering to moviegoers as well. “Even having waiter symbols on sessions lets the customer know there’s something special to look forward to. There are subtle improvements that help us showcase what we have to offer.”

Self-service enhances all sides of the moviegoing experience

Everything at Cinebar revolves around F&B. “Every auditorium is all about the dine-in cinema experience. They are deliberately arranged to enable us to serve customers not just at the start of the film, but throughout.” From QR codes printed on tickets and illuminated at their tables, to ordering online, Cinebar are focused on making sure moviegoers are empowered with an easy, frictionless experience throughout their journey.

“We’re always looking to make the customer more self-sufficient,” David added, emphasising that technology isn’t replacing their kitchen staff or waiters, but can replace queues and speed up interaction time. “Customers can arrive, go to a kiosk, print a ticket, and immediately start ordering, while our staff focus on making the food and drinks and delivering to the customer.”

“It means we can do more of what we’re good at.”

Engagement from Cinebar’s moviegoers has been positive, from responses to the refreshed look and responsivity of their new website to adoption of new features among their loyalty members. “We’re finding more and more that customers like the self-sufficiency we can offer them with Vista,” David said, “whether it’s changing their seats or ordering food and beverage online.”

Lumos has provided Cinebar’s team with the capability to implement new features with minimal effort and resource. Incentivising pre-booking, changing their loyalty rewards, and trialling new deals have all been a simple matter for Cinebar’s team to trial.

Their moviegoers have embraced these new features. “For example,” David said, “we didn’t alert moviegoers about the new pay with points feature, but they immediately started using it the moment we released it.” By giving more immediate rewards for loyalty members to be used on their subsequent visits, Cinebar hopes to ensure each experience ends with another reason to encourage the next.

The end of one session, the start of the next

Cinebar are looking forward to more opportunities with Vista Cloud, trialling new features unlocked by Lumos such as highlighting pre-release screenings to encourage pre-booking. Likewise, React, an upcoming pulse survey feature to capture moviegoers’ sentiment and intent after their visit, has David excited. “It bookends the moviegoer’s experience,” he said. “It shows you’re interested to know about their experience, and to set yourself up for the next one.”

Embracing self-service with Vista Cloud’s Digital Enablement capabilities has enabled Cinebar to balance empowering their moviegoers’ experiences while improving the efficiency of their own operations.

“The more we can put the power of their experience in their hands, the better it is for both us and the customer.”