MovieTickets is one of the largest online movie ticketing websites in the US, representing an estimated 240 theater chains. According to its CEO Joel Cohen, accepting bitcoin payments for ticket purchases has increased sales and visibility for the company.
The company earns revenue by sharing service fee proceeds with theater chains in exchange for managing an e-commerce process for their ticket sales. Payment options includes accepting major credit cards as its individual theater partners allow, but the demand for bitcoin payments has increased in the past year.
Bitcoin Payments for Movies
Customers that buy tickets typically do so online or through their mobile phones, which makes bitcoin a viable option. In addition, at the request of Open Road Films, which is the US distributor for the independent film Dope, the company realized that it was well positioned to expand its payment options to include bitcoin.
“I was surprised how well it was embraced and kind of presented in a very positive light. We really got visibility into new audiences,” shares Cohen. He mentioned that accepting digital currency payments wasn’t really a priority back then so he was surprised with the additional exposure that bitcoin payments generated.
Currently, MovieTickets sells tickets for over 900 theaters in the country and has reportedly seen “several hundreds” of transactions in bitcoin. In addition, the mainstream company was also been able to present itself as an innovative brand by making this move.
“We’re always looking at always to drive ticket sales and it’s a valid way of selling tickets, then it just works,” Cohen said. However, he also shared that it has also been a big challenge to educate theaters about this relatively new type of payment and it didn’t help that bitcoin had a bit of negative reputation to deal with. “It’s just like anything else, we need to see people adopt it as generally accepted,” he pointed out.
