• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, Today

The movie theater business is still in a tenuous state -- with the belief that streaming major movies in homes will continue to hurt its business.

Perhaps not entirely believing a return to the movie theatrical business is coming back anytime soon, the largest U.S. movie-theater company -- AMC Theatres -- is trying again to find another way, another business using their big video screens and big audience theaters when they are not using it for movies.

How about live, concert-like content performances?

Much of this may be spurred from the success of theatrical release “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” concert film in 2023. AMC Theaters was a distributor of the movie to its own theaters and others.

Now AMC Theatres is starting up something under the umbrella called Arena One -- where live popular music acts will appear on  the big screen in a "concert-like" setting for theatergoers. 

Acts will perform on a large interactive “cinematic” stage, where the performers will be surrounded with enormous live screens of fans/viewers in the movie there.

AMC hopes this new type of business will attract music lovers with a price tag of $40 to $75 a seat -- much less than attending a traditional live concert, (but considerably more than the average price for a movie ticket).

Performances will begin in June: Bebe Rexha on June 17, Paris Hilton on June 18, and Maren Morris on June 20.

All this would seem to be just another iteration of attempting to expand movie-theater screens and audience facilities.

For decades, movie theaters have aired on-off live boxing matches, classical music concerts, NFL, UFC, and FIFA sporting events, to offer up a "stadium like" atmosphere. 

Arena One also seems to riff from how people attend and watch actual live music concerts currently -- where there are many video screens for music fans/concertgoers to watch. 

Why? It brings people closer to the acts, and especially if concertgoers are sitting far away in a stadium setting and can’t see performers in part or at all.

The real question is for AMC is whether that closer feel will bring them the excitement and music impact they seek. 

Will fans really get up out of their seats and dance?