Why are most movie theatres located on the top floor of an Indian mall?
These two things i.e ‘food courts’ and ‘multiplexes’ enjoy ‘Destination Status’ i.e crowd will visit them, no matter what.
People come to a Mall not only to shop but to eat and watch movies as well, as modern day malls are a complete entertainment package. There are many shoppers who end up eating at a restaurant or watching movie at a multiplex in a Mall, however, the reverse is not always true. Imagine a mall having their food court and the Multiplex right at the entrance on ground floor. These sections would be crowded as hell and many of the brands on the higher floors would hardly see a visitor.
You would have noticed that not only is a multiplex located at higher floor, but their access is fairly complicated consisting of many escalators located at remote places which looks like a maze.
The purpose of keeping a food court and multiplex on the topmost floor is purely to make shoppers visit the entire mall twice (going up and down) and cash in on the impulse buying behaviour. If you see a Mall ever in your life which has its multiplex and food court located at ground floor, it is bound to be doomed. 🙂
Thanks to contributions from some of the great Civil Engineers of our country, I got to know that one more reason for keeping a multiplex on the top is to keep the overall cost of construction to the lowest. As a multiplex needs an unobstructed view without huge pillars/columns, keeping it on the top floor makes economic sense as they can have the design as per their choice.
Written By – Vipul Jain, Analyst of business strategies.
