When’s the last time you saw a movie in the theaters?

Whether you can remember, or if it’s been so long you can’t, the theaters are still on hand, and looking into new ways to advance and remain relevant in a world dominated by streaming and home theaters.

Theaters have a new plan on this front, and they’re turning to a technology that some retailers have started closely embracing: beacons.

Mobiquity Networks got together with Screenvision, a movie theater management company, to bring beacon networks to over 300 cinemas throughout the United States.

Not much, granted, against the huge number of theaters nationwide—Screenvision itself manages 2,300 total—but it’s certainly a start, and a start that Screenvision’s chief strategic development officer John McCauley believes can turn around the flagging fortunes of the movie theater.

Where beacon technology in retail stores will point out certain displays or sale items, beacon technology in theaters will point out select deals on merchandise and the like related to the movie just seen. Theater five, where Star Wars: The Force Awakens is showing, might get coupons for replica toys.

Essentially, such technology takes advantage of the fact that users are most engaged in the seconds following a movie, and so the beacon technology allows theaters to strike while the iron is hot.

Potentially, such a system could be connected to mobile payments, offering a “see it again” discount option where those in theaters get the option to purchase a discounted ticket for the very next showing right from the theater itself. There’s nothing saying it would have to be used immediately, either; it could be a voucher for a showing at another time.

With studios consolidating resources and bringing out fewer titles, a noteworthy point among declining numbers of theater-goers, theaters must do more to get more bang out of a less readily-available buck. Hiking concession prices—already catastrophically high—isn’t the answer, so what’s left? Beacon technology delivering upselling possibilities right at the point of highest engagement could well be that solution.

It’s clear the theaters need a little extra boost. Some have tried it with upscale dining options while watching. Others have turned to liquor licenses or day care options, but whatever it is, the theater needs a key differentiation factor. Beacons could be it, and the Screenvision / Mobiquity test should prove it one way or another.