Earnings Labs

The Marcus Corporation (MCS)

Q3 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 27, 2016

$19.22

+0.29%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+1.21%

1 Week

+0.93%

1 Month

+19.60%

vs S&P

+15.97%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to The Marcus Corporation Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. My name is [Kailey], and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Joining us today are Greg Marcus, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Doug Neis, Chief Financial Officer of The Marcus Corporation. At this time, I would like to turn the program over to Mr. Neis for his opening remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Douglas Neis

Analyst

Thank you and welcome, everybody to our fiscal 2016 third quarter conference call. As usual, I’ll need to begin by stating that we plan on making a number of forward-looking statements on our call today. Our forward-looking statements could include, but not be limited to statements about our future revenue and earnings expectations; our future RevPAR, occupancy rates, and room rate expectations for our hotels and resorts division; our expectations about the quality, quantity, and audience appeal of film product expected to be made available to us in the future; our expectations about the future trends in the business group and leisure travel industry and in our markets; our expectations and plans regarding growth in the number and type of our properties and facilities; our expectations regarding various non-operating line items on our earnings statement; and our expectations regarding future capital expenditures. Of course, our actual results could differ materially from those projected or suggested by our forward-looking statements. Factors, risks, and uncertainties which could impact our ability to achieve our expectations are included in the risk factors section of our 10-K and 10-Q filings, which can be obtained from the SEC or the Company. We’ll also post all Regulation G disclosures when applicable on our website at www.marcuscorp.com. So, with that behind us, let’s talk about our fiscal 2016 third quarter and first three quarters. And as you can see it was another great quarter for us. Thanks to record performance from our theatre division. As been the case now for three years we once again outperform the industry and pretty significantly of that. Results from our hotels and resorts division were down slightly this quarter, but year-to-date we remain significantly ahead of last year and we're also performing in this division. Following our usual format for these calls,…

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

Thanks, Doug. I’ll begin my remarks today with our theatre division where the numbers certainly speak for themselves. When we last talked in late July, we told you that our fiscal 2016 third quarter was off to a very good start and we were once again outperforming the industry. But I suspect the amount of our outperformance may have surprised you. From a pure size of our performance perspective, our 10.5 percentage point over indexing to the national numbers this quarter was the largest we've experienced of our three quarters so far in fiscal 2016. And one of the largest quarterly spreads of the last three years. Yes, we had a solid slate of films during the third quarter both in terms of quantity and quality. But don't forget that we are also outperformed and we also outperformed during the second quarter when film comparisons were much more difficult. The fact is that we continue to demonstrate that our business model is a successful one that has resulted in sustained industry outperformance now three years worth to be exact. As I indicated, we had a good film slate to work with this quarter. Box office receipts increased during 10 of the 13 weeks in the third quarter fiscal 2016 with the greatest increase occurring during July in the first half of August. Although attendance did increase during September 2016 compared to September 2015. Historically, the second half of August and the month of September have comprised one of the weakest periods for moviegoing and students return to school and the quality of films released tends to weaken. In addition, the Olympics likely had some negative impact on moviegoing during the third quarter of fiscal 2016 as television viewing tends to increase during the two weeks of events. I know I…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We’ll go first with Mike Hickey with Benchmark Company. Your line is open.

Michael Hickey

Analyst

Hey, Greg and Doug. Congrats on a great quarter.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

Thanks Mike.

Michael Hickey

Analyst

The curious on your view on AMC and Carmike it looks like the deal at least an increased chance of happening so and sort of wondering what your playbook is in terms of any potential DOJ stand of theaters on that stale and Orlando at this point has any sense of what the potential assets would look like that may come to auction.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

Michael I really don't think it's a good idea for us to comment on somebody else's transaction. You know obviously to the extent that and we talk about this [indiscernible] that there will be theatres that are available to market we're going to look at them and we'd be interested in acquiring them if the metrics make sense.

Michael Hickey

Analyst

All right. Fair enough. I guess on the recliner installs based on what you've announced so far. How many theatre installations. Do you expect to have in the Q4?

Douglas Neis

Analyst

In Q4 I don't believe there will be any more that will open up in Q4, we work really hard to try to get everything offset hereby the end of October with the couple of additional locations. As you know we opened up our Country Club Hills. That is going to be – let me amend what I just said, I mean we've already talked about in the press release. That's why I wasn't talking about beyond that, but for a Country Club Hills did open up about a week or so ago. And so that 16 additional screens that we didn’t even have and they're all dream under all locations. And then our Orland Park Theatre in Chicago also is just finishing up as well. I believe we have all of the main auditorium open and the UltraScreen will be opening up shortly, but it hasn't already and so we do actually have two new theatres, 31 screens that are part of that 48% that Greg was talking about, because it's already now essentially completed. But those last two are actually fourth quarter additions.

Michael Hickey

Analyst

Okay.

Douglas Neis

Analyst

We're in the process now of taking a look at 2017, so I don't have any report in that perspective yet, but as Greg said in his prepared comments, we do anticipate having some, some additional installations.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

I would just add Country Club Hills looks fantastic. It really the team did a fantastic job on that theatre. If anybody in that area should check it out were really turned out beautifully. Well in part is as Doug said by most all the recliners are done it's not all done the lobby as well, but we can have a go or under some pretty heavy construction but it should be done shortly.

Michael Hickey

Analyst

Okay. So Doug just to clarify is that 21 theatres then in Q4 that then converted to DreamLounger compared to 13 prior year, is that right.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

Yes, 21 theatres will have now completely converted to all DreamLounger and then of course we have some other theatres that might have just Ultrascreen or Superscreen DLX’s, but we have 21 theatres now that have that are completely converted correct.

Michael Hickey

Analyst

Okay. Thanks and the last question for me. Just curious on the theatre side how your current performance is relative to market in October. Thank you.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

Thus far we continue to outperform for the first three and a half weeks or so of October we are outperforming again versus the industry.

Michael Hickey

Analyst

Hi guys. Good luck.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line Eric Wold with B. Riley

Eric Wold

Analyst · B. Riley

Thank you. Good morning. Obviously phenomenal continued outperformance on the theatre side versus industry? Can you maybe try to dig in a little bit in kind of give us a sense of the trends you're seeing on the remodeled theaters in competitive zones versus ones or maybe not so competitors zone try to get a sense of kind of how much of has been driven by increase repeat visitation versus the share shift.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · B. Riley

I can. Let me answer that question two ways there. One is, increase the performance – has been performance of the entire circuit. And it's coming from and I the reason I say this is because I'll tell you the ones that were - the theatres that have all the bells and whistles. They're very competitive and even where we're going up against in competitive zones are or competitive areas it's call that we are outperforming and because I think that we have a very robust package that is very attractive the consumer. But that being said as we as we talk about it really it goes beyond. The just the physical improvements for making the theatres and what we're seeing is really a lot of the marketing programs you know we do the grassroots marketing we do they know our loyalty program, it is really everything coming together and working across the circuit and the strategies that we're using to take advantage of finally knowing who are customers are you know again I keep saying this keep on it and I think that we're just at the beginning. I think there's opportunities for us that we haven't been able to even be able to mine yet because we're just we're just really on the beginning of the loyalty journey understanding who our customers are and so I say this really goes beyond simply just the theatres where we're get it - we're doing that but it's organic and share you can drop to your question if you're trying to drop by how much organic growth they're getting from the theatres where they put all those in. I'm not sure that you have a pull that numbers that we're going able out the numbers that we're going to – that we presented.

Douglas Neis

Analyst · B. Riley

And Eric, I'll even give you an additional number to support what Greg just talked about, so in this third quarter the – I shared with you that comparing the kind of the misaligned weeks box office, national box office was up 9.3% and we were up 19.8% with those misaligned weeks. 42, we just discussed it with Mike's earlier question that we have 21 theatres now that have the DreamLounger recliner seats and two of which just opened they weren't really part of the third quarter at all. So 19 theatres had the DreamLounger during the quarter. 42 of our theatres outperformed the industry. So this is much broader than I mean I'm not trying the now slate the DreamLounger a big part of what's been going on, but this is a broader than just that.

Eric Wold

Analyst · B. Riley

Well, Rolando those theatres are outperforming the industry. If I different into the numbers a little bit kind of just taking the simple ratio of concession revenues to admission revenues that declined year-over-year in Q3 for first time in quite some time we go back is obviously tough with the shift in the fiscal year. Anything that's possibly attributed that is that timing of when these maybe some of the remodels have open, is the film mix or anything there or might kind of trend to grasping a straw here?

Douglas Neis

Analyst · B. Riley

Yes. No, actually you hit on two of them actually, some with the timing. The reality is that when you look at when the additional manatees opened last year and this year, we've actually only had – in these comparable time periods we actually only had two new Take Five Lounge open in the last year. We haven't had as many in this past year. We've had a few pharaohs and real sizzles open up in this past year, but just on a year-over-year basis in this quarter, we've now lapped a lot of those newer ones. So that’s a little bit of that. Film mix absolutely had a play – part of this as well as I noted, we've certainly have seen some of these kids' pictures do well and that's not going to drive a lot of liquor sales. So certainly there is a little bit of film mix going on there. Look, this was July; a big part of this particular quarter was July and August. We've talked about in the past that during the summer we see a slight tilt in the mix related to the $5.00 Tuesday for example. And so in general, our concessions are a little less. On Tuesday’s than they are in other nights because of the free popcorn for our members of the loyalty program. So it becomes not any one thing, it becomes a mix of all these things and that's kind of the dynamic you're looking at in this particular quarter. We've been very price conscious too and we have not done anything with our pricing for a little while now. That will certainly be something we'll be taking a look at in the future.

Eric Wold

Analyst · B. Riley

Perfect. And last question on the Screenvision comments you made potentially for the $3 million milestone payment in Q4. Is that the only potential milestone payment in the current agreement and then can you provide us when the current Screenvision expires?

Douglas Neis

Analyst · B. Riley

The answer to the first question is yes. This is the big milestone payment. Once we reached the milestone, our agreements had a slightly different formula driven to it that we think will be advantageous to those well given the amount of attendance that we’re driving through our theatres, but it's the only milestone payment. And Eric, we haven't disclosed the length of our contract.

Eric Wold

Analyst · B. Riley

I don’t think you did, but had to try. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Loeb with Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Good morning.

Douglas Neis

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Hi, Dave.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Hi, Doug and Greg you’ve answered around this. You talked a lot about the theatre performance, but I wonder if you could just sort of distill it down. The 14.7% comparable attendance, what do you think are the biggest factors driving that?

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Again I'd say it's everything, it’s the recliners, it’s the food and beverage and it's the strategies that we're using with our loyalty programs and the marketing around all of that - Dave I would point to one thing and say here's how we did it but it's a lot of things, there’s a lot of tired people on 20 because it's a lot of things.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Yes. And it does seem to be although the numbers obviously fluctuate, you seem to be driving these gains with a variety of different kinds of film lineups?

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Yes. I mean we have stuff we perform better on, but we know what that is but just given the nature of where our leaders are and but what we perform very strongly with women films with women oriented films we do very well with that, we do very family films. The more urban stuff is a little more challenging for us because of the markets were in but we play better on the coasts.

Douglas Neis

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

And then I've talked about this before David but one of the things that the team has been very, very good at that and this is where I think it's still the tip of the iceberg is, we're looking ahead we're looking at the film lineups you just addressed it. The film lineups vary from quarter-to-quarter and our team looks ahead at what that line up looks like, they look at the genres, they look and say if anything missing. Are we little lacking kids or we lacking in some horror pictures or you name and I mean that’s all the different types of genre and then they look to try to fill in with that. And again now that we have the ability to communicate with our customers for the first time, we can tell them about that we can them about special series and things along those lines. I missed last night, I think last night at our theatres we showed Christmas Vacation it's one of my wife's all time favorite movies and I would – we hope to try to get to see that. But again there was we look for holes in the schedule and we try to show some bring back pictures and show things like that.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Even in your family so you were competing in World Series.

Douglas Neis

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Yes, exactly.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Sorry, Greg.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

No, go ahead.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

No. I was commenting on folks World Series appetite. So next question from me.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Go ahead, David.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

In hotels how is October been so far, what kind of trends you are seeing in transient group?

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

The business right now has been a little bit soft. I don't think that I’m going to tell you anything different than you're hearing anywhere else in the industry right now. You know businesses this quarter, we're feeling some softness.

Douglas Neis

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

In our markets the fall is a pretty good time for us. It starts as you know it starts to drop off probably you know particularly when you get there probably December in a lot of our markets and we're certainly, we're looking ahead we're not we think we're going to be we're chasing some room nights in December we know that and so it's - I'm not sure as we've said in our prepared remarks I think that the fourth quarter is going to be a little bit of a challenge for us, it's going to challenge for our markets and our goal is certainly if we continue to outperform whatever those markets are so. Our challenge has been in the little bit of a group business, the transit I think has been, okay, but the group business is little soft.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

And then final topic. Greg, you mentioned looking at acquisitions does the move in your stock price make those transactions a bit more likely. I guess what I am try to figure out is how are you looking at your cost of capital here and does that influence your potential acquisition decisions.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

David I would say that it does not influence our discussions because as you know our balance sheet is in pretty good place and so any acquisitions that we're going to do I think we're in a pretty good place to use our balance sheet to do that you know so and that's because we know that, we don't know where our stock price is going to be day to day and but we want to be prepared to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that come our way - and that's how we manage our business.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

In terms of the kind of lifecycle investments on the part of some of the smaller family owned theatre circuits. Do you see more of those coming up in the near future?

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

I don't have a crystal ball. I don't if more are going to come up you know we've had a pretty robust periods of people are doing okay, but the other side is they're facing some pretty significant capital investments. That is the way the industry is going and if you're going to be competitive, we’re going to have to reinvest in the theatres and that puts us again in the place we've got experience doing it and I would say the market is active. I know I would not - the market is active the stuff to look at but you know we have to will be disciplined about it and look to make investments where we can do what we've done here and that is find stuff that needs investment and to be prepared for the future.

David Loeb

Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Goss, Barrington Research. Your line is open.

James Goss

Analyst

Thank you. Returning to screen vision for a minute. Given that Carmike had still has a somewhat of an ownership element with the screen vision, but some of that relationship must shift a little bit there absorption by AMC some of that goes through even if they still are affiliated with screen vision? Does that make room for you to sort of takeover some of that position that I would imagine screen vision still has an interest and having sort of an anchor tenant to the fact that they would give you a $3 million milestone payment and with that alter your economics at all.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

No, no we have nothing to really comment on that we've gotten that that we haven't heard anything as to what the and I don't think you have either nobody's start - what the dispensations going to be screen vision with Carmike and screen vision and all that until that happens I don't think with anybody in even a position to start the guess and I'm not going to guess what's going to happen.

James Goss

Analyst

Okay. You also mentioned the 48% receded to this point. So there are some theoretical maximum before which there would be certain ones you would not be anxious to receive for one reason or another as has been the case for some of the others.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

There's a theoretical maximum move people have been talking what they - where they think it's going to end up and look at you start – as you redo the years just as they come up in their lifecycles I think that if you're going to be in the business and you're saying I quote someone in our business always as we build in theatre of yesterday the theatre of tomorrow and we like to think we're building theatre of tomorrow. And so you know in the cycle through them. I think the percentage will increase probably as rapidly as it has but that we keep looking at them and as we said as long as they meet the hurdles we're going to keep doing them.

James Goss

Analyst

And you raise an interesting point too because to the extent that a lot of cases theatres tend to be least properties that since you have a higher ownership position which gave you a greater flexibility to go more aggressively and do it. You may have less of the same driving factor of leased renewals to think about that. What is the process you go through in terms of thinking about when you should be changing and renovating theatres.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

Well, just so my data saying has a saying you know if the customer can see it is too late. And so we try to use that as our barometer sometimes we miss but we're trying to we know we these things have lifecycles we know how long we take and so as the theaters come up on their lifecycle we start to look and make sure that we get them in the right place to make the improvements that need to be made and so we work within those lifecycle.

James Goss

Analyst

Okay. Just a couple of other quicker ones. Alternative content I am wondering if that's any part of the you know your customer and reward program data usage. If that ties in for career utilization or screen based.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

Yes, I think you know again and I and Doug started to talk about it and I'll get out of the get look. It's not a huge part of the business just yet, but I think that it's going to continue to grow we're seeing growth we're seeing growth in the numbers we're seeing it again use net royalty program to be able to drive. That's what drives our marginal I think one of things is driving our marginal improvement over anybody else is the ability to take advantage of that. And we're just at the beginning of it. I mean we're not even I mean I know that we have a lots of opportunity to do more things. So but I don't - I can't tell you where I think it's going to end up I just don't know but I think it's going to continue to grow as we get better at it as more becomes available. And you know again even whether the business is strong or weak I think that that gives us the ability to be marginally better.

Douglas Neis

Analyst

The quantity is certainly increasing as well Jim. I mean I haven't done a tabulation for this, but we will certainly do it for the – at the end of the year, where we’ll tabulate and say look that we showed this many alternative content features this year versus last year. And I expect that number will reflect again, an increase in quantity that we've been seeing in the last couple years.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

And it’s our hope. If we get sports, sports could really be meaningful. And there is some, but it’s some of the more majors. And I think as contracts turn over and the viewing and the way things are presented moving from a linear broadcast format to a more on-demand format may change some of dynamics and allow us to participate in some of that, I hope. Nobody has offered me anything just yet, so I'm not going to get up here and say that's going to happen for sure. But it's a pretty great place to watching a sporting event than you had in the food and beverage is really great experience.

James Goss

Analyst

Okay. And lastly, in terms of the strategy you laid out for your hotel group. Trying to lighten up on the capital investment, maintain management contracts. It sounds like a very interesting strategy. I'm wondering how you think it as you look back on the initial stage of trying to do that. How successful you think that might be if it's going to post more of a challenge than you thought it was as you sort of created the strategy?

Douglas Neis

Analyst

I guess Jim, I’ll say this. We've never set up an easy strategy to execute because in our case, our portfolio is made up of – Today now eight distinct assets, different markets, different types of assets. So really we view it truly as an asset by asset type decision and strategy. I'm telling you what you already know is that certainly the tax consequences of several of them are significant and so. Again, the second half of that strategy that you didn't mention is that and in some cases it might require us to find something to buy first in order to be able to effectively do at 1,031. So there is – this painting a picture is saying that there is multiple elements to that strategy we're still talking about it because we still think it's a good strategy and a valid strategy but you know what you won't get us to do and is that we're not going to ever talk about well which hotels we're looking at or where are we in the process there, it’s a very sensitive process and the markets change constantly. I mean the transactional market is always there but there are some good and bad times during that transactional market. So we're just going to be very disciplined and very opportunistic, two words that I probably use the most when I talk to investors.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst

I guess the only thing I'd add to that – Doug is right, it is a strategy we are working on, we continue to work on it and yet we're also, we face the same things you know about the vicissitudes of the markets and when things can sell and trying to deal with tax issues because at the end of the day. We do have very strong hotel assets and so we're not in the - we don’t have to do something just to do something, we know what we want to do, we know we want to execute on but we're going to be smart and disciplined about it because we feel comfortable with the assets that we have, we maintain them, they're very well maintained and they tend to be very, very solid assets for the most part.

James Goss

Analyst

All right. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Brian Rafn with Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Good morning guys. Great quarter. Awesome.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Let me just ask you on the food and beverage, you guys certainly have made great progress in there. If you were to kind of look at food and beverage and strip out the popcorn in the IC and the sorts and the candy bars and looked at some of your higher ran, your chicken or your hamburgers, you know more of a full meal say a Take Five or Sizzle Reel or your Big Screen Bistro. Are you seeing a positive growth in the sales check per customer and what I would call more of a meal versus just the snack in your different theatres?

Douglas Neis

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Well, I mean the short answer is yes. The more nuanced answer Brian is that – and we saw a little bit of it this quarter is that on a quarter-to-quarter basis we'll see some swings depending on the type of film product that we're showing. So the mix of how much of it comes from those other food and beverage concepts, the full meal type things that you're referring to will swing from quarter-to-quarter. But overall, we're pleased with the – per capital that we're getting. We think there's always room to make them better and our teams got active strategies on every one of these concepts in terms of how to continue to drive incremental revenues from these concepts. But look the reason why we've kept doing them is because they're meeting our return thresholds and so we've – so my short answer is yes.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Yes. You guys do a fabulous job. When you look at some of the other major chains, do they have a higher end food content as you guys have or they a little more just popcorn and soda?

Douglas Neis

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

What you're seeing is people are getting into more of the - you call it high end, let’s call it a more developed and robust food and beverage mix, but I would tell you that of everybody I've seen I would say that we probably have, not probably. We have I think the best offering. Everybody else is doing it now. I think maybe I just come from the fact that we've been in the food and beverage business side for 50 years. So we approached it. We approached it from a food and beverage oriented perspective and quality and understanding. That just needs to be something different. I think that's been – worked to our advantage.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

You guys have hallmark. You guys are so good at that. You really have done a fabulous job on that. Let me ask you on some of the retro series that you talked about kind of looking for holes in that. What kind of attendance traffic do you get if it's not a matinee and in a prime slot. And then a question out of ignorance. You get a favorable negotiated share with the Hollywood. How does that the revenue – or is that something you keep the 100% - how does that revenue might read on those retro series?

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Brian, our teams are going to work very well. I like that idea of keeping 100%. I like that.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

I got a new goal.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Not that 100%. It really varies from product to product, it just depends on what it is we're showing and who it is. What to take of the distributor. Really at this level, it's not a huge absolute dollar contributor, but it's becoming meaningful and it's growing. And I think it's something that we’ll continue to build as people start to view us as a place to see alternative content to. You can't just show it once in a while because people forget about you. You have to build to habit and so we're building that habit and we're starting to see the fruits of that. But it's an investment and it’s an investment of our time and our screen real estate.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Okay. If you look at the – you've got the Tuesday night $5.00 night, you’ve got – I think the Tuesday college student night or high school student night or whatever. What kind of a runway do you have? Is the Tuesday $5.00 night, is that really the primary focus and Thursday is an add-on or is Thursday that $5.00 student night is that also viable candidates for further growth in attendance in food and beverage concession sales?

Douglas Neis

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Yes. We view both. We don’t view it as well. Okay, we are done. We've got as much as we can out of Tuesday and Thursday. Our team is constantly challenging itself to try to continue to improve on what's been some pretty remarkable results. And Tuesday is the focus. That’s everybody, right. But Thursday I think is a growth area for us as well. So look I mean, we're three years and actually we're just coming on the three-year anniversary of rolling the $5.00 Tuesday program out. So it's been pretty remarkable to continue to see that how that has continued to grow and we established in our markets.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

I think the bigger – from it frankly as we talked about in the call earlier and that is we continue to think about the revenue management strategies across the entire spectrum of films that we show at times that we show them. How do we maximize that how do we offer the right price. The right customer at the right time and straight out of the hotel playbook but that is what we do.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Okay.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

That is now is mainstream. So that means premium pricing.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Okay. Let me ask you Greg you talk about the markets rewards a loyalty program. As you evolve that type of thing. Right now you're able to understand your customer to monitor - you able to send emails and that drive some traffic. But as I view it, it’s kind of a little bit of a one way communication you kind of surveilling kind of monitoring. Is that ever a two way gateway where your customer might someday talk back to you? Or is that currently being done.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

I think you're right. There are opportunities to talk back to us we are very active on social media. I'm active on social media. We've got Marcus theatres active on social media and you know we want the customers to talk back to us we actually go out and this is one of the great question that you ask. One of things that we are very focused is you know is that we - when you come in you give us your loyalty card now we know who you are. We send a certain subset of that the people who show up a survey and say how did you do - how do we do. How is your experience and then they answer and they reply and we get and we're very focused on how scores are. And so we look to so it is a two way communication I think our opportunities are that kind of two way communication really providing more content to our customers. You know that you only get if you are a loyalty club member, shouldn't just be a sales pitch every time, we want to give them content. We want to make this a very robust program that really people want to be a part of it and it's not just a sales pitch but what it is great offers it's great content, it's the ability to talk to us, it’s really all those things.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Okay. Without going to the markets Country Club Hills if you guys just open new [indiscernible] flagship scale like Sun Prairie in the majestic or is that just the average theater. What you call the entertainer…

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Nothing average about that theatre.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Okay. All right.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

I mean it is really - it's spectacular. I mean we took the structure and basically got it and I mean and all of our - you see that all of our amenities as you said DreamLoungers one of the screen two super screens Take Five Lounge, Reel Sizzle. I mean it's got all - it's got the whole package there and so it’s, so there's nothing ordinary about that theatre. Last question Brian we are coming to the end of the hour here.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

So just one on the M&A when you're looking at selective you know other theatres or whether they be spin-offs, subdeals with the DOJ or whatever or somebody selling. How attractive is you actually owning the real estate underneath the theatres. Is that a deal killer or is it much like the hotel chain where you want to be less perhaps capital intensive going forward.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Its not a deal killer but we prefer it.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Okay. Thanks guys.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Our preferences is on the theater side is we like - we like owning the real estate - but if it doesn't have it. It doesn't mean we're not to look at it. I mean the point to make it's a good place to finish Brian and that is you know we've been in this business for a long time and owning our real estate has continued to work to our advantages, Doug pointed out, we have a huge percentage of recliners because we're not having to negotiate with landlords and cut new deals with landlords and trying to figure all that out. We can move, we can be nimble and this has happened before in our industry and we think that every time that it happens it seems to drive home the point when you own your own real estate man you can really get ahead and get out front.

Brian Rafn

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Awesome. Great quarter guys. Awesome job.

Gregory Marcus

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is open.

Thanks, Brian. End of Q&A

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Now I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Neis for any closing remarks.

Douglas Neis

Analyst

Thank you everybody once again for joining us today. We look forward to talking to you once again at the end of February now when we were release our fiscal 2016 fourth quarter and year end results. Until then thanks and have a great day.