Atom Tickets Wants to Bring Back Theater Magic With Mobile

For years now, some—like yours truly—have expected the death of the theater, supplanted by increasingly inexpensive home theater options and huge savings on gas prices.

While gas prices didn’t stay as high as they once were, the theater is still gamely struggling along. Atom Tickets, meanwhile, wants to see that change, and it’s looking to turn to mobile to get the job done.

While sales aren’t cratering—in 2015, 1.32 billion tickets were sold just in the US, which is up from 2014, but down from the 10 year high of 1.42 billion achieved in 2009—they’re not exactly booming either.

With 10 million tickets separating today from the 10 year high, it’s easy to see why theaters are concerned.

Atom Tickets’ big draw is big data. Not only will it supply many of the standard services like buying tickets, but it will also allow users to pre-buy concessions and skip the lines altogether, just picking up what’s been previously ordered.

The big data connection, meanwhile, allows the app to consider what tickets you’ve already purchased and then make recommendations.

While some may dispute the value of these recommendations—algorithm-based recommendations haven’t always gone so well with services like Netflix—the suggestion alone is pretty good, and when added to all the other factors, it does make theater-going about as attractive as it can be.

Indeed, reports note that growth for individual theaters following adoption of the app is on the rise. However, there’s a problem here that remains unresolved: no app is going to fix all the problems of a theater experience.

No mobile app can reduce the price down to whatever you’re paying on Netflix. No app can silence the crying baby or the teenagers sloppily making out. No app can pause the movie while making a bathroom call, nor un-sticky the floor.

The movie theater has only two real advantages: early access to the biggest titles and the mythic quality of “the theater experience.” Even the technical edge is on the decline thanks to home theater hardware and smaller-sized rooms.

Atom Tickets is definitely putting up a good effort, but is it enough? Only time will tell if that’s so, but there’s no doubt this app is giving theaters the best chance they can have.