Cinema Tycoon Guide: Tips & Cheats To Run a Successful Theater

Ever wanted to run your own movie theater? Now is your chance with Cinema Tycoon, an idle tapping management game where the newest cinema on the block belongs to you! Hire workers, build theaters, install sound systems, oh and do not forget about the popcorn and snacks, the most important part of the movie-going experience!

In Touch Tap Play’s Cinema Tycoon tips and tricks guide, we will go over the basics of running your theater and how to earn coins fast. Like most idle game, it is all about efficiency so we will cover that in our Cinema Tycoon cheats, tips, and tricks strategy guide to run a successful theater!

The Parking Lot

Cinema Tycoon begins just like a real-life movie theater – finding a place to park your car! Movie goers will drive into the theater’s parking lot and find the nearest open space to park their car in.

There are three upgrades here: price, frequency, and slots. Price will determine how much money you get every time someone parks their car initially and the money generated over time.

Frequency determines how short the intervals are between the money collection times. You see, every couple of seconds a car is parked in the lot, you gain more money. The longer your guests stay, the more money you will earn from the parking lot.

The final upgrade are slots, which determines how many parking spaces there are. The more slots you have, the more money you will earn in the long run.

Ensuring that your parking lot has a lot of spaces to hold as many guests as possible is your top priority here. After that, you can start increasing the amount of money you earn and the frequency so start racking in lots of money.

(This Cinema Tycoon guide was first published on Touch Tap Play)

The Ticket Lobby

Now that your guests are parked and situated, they will enter the main lobby of your theater. This is where they will line up to purchase tickets for the movie they want to see. They will wait in the queue, and when it is their turn they will go up to the counter and the employee will take care of them within a few seconds.

There are once again three upgrades here to consider: price, speed, and slots.

Price determines how much money a single ticket sell generates. Upgrades this to earn more money over time.

Speed determines how fast your employees can get guests through into the concessions lobby. If you are noticing a bottleneck at the lobby, try improving speed to get guests in and out faster.

Slots determines how long your line queue can be. The more upgrades you have, the longer your queue will be, which means more guests will come to your theater. If your queue is full, that means your parking lot is full, which will cause no more guests to come until you add more slots.

Early on, you only need a couple of slots for the ticket lobby. Your main objective is to get guests through as fast as possible, as the tickets are not really your main money makers. For this reason, speed is the upgrade to prioritize here.

The Concession Stands

After your guests purchase their tickets, they will make it to the final stop before their movie: the concession stands! Here they can purchase popcorn, candy, soft drinks, and more yummy goodies.

You have two stands: a general snack stand on the left and a popcorn stand on the right. Once guests are in the concession lobby, they will pick one randomly and go purchase some treats.

The three upgrades this time are price, speed, and slots, making the concession lobby function similar to the ticket lobby.

Price determines how much money you will make per transaction.

Speed determines how fast your employees can complete a customer’s transaction.

Slots determines how many customers each stand can hold at once.

We all know theater snacks and food is much more expensive than outside food, and that remains true in Cinema Tycoon. After a few levels, your snacks will be selling at a much higher rate than your tickets.

The concession lobby is a great primer to your main money maker, so make sure you upgrade slots and speed to take care of as many guests as possible. If all stand slots are full, guests will skip the concessions and go straight to the movie theater. Avoid this at all costs!

The Movie Theaters

And finally, the main presentation! Your auditoriums are situated at the very back of the building, and your guests will automatically find their seats. Each auditorium shows a countdown on the screen when it is prepping, and during this time guests will pour in.

When the countdown is finished, the movie will begin to play. Guests can still join during this time and you will still earn the same amount of money. After the movie is over, all guests will pay all at once and you will receive a large sum of money.

As always, there are three upgrades to consider here: price, duration, and seats.

Price determines how much money each person will pay when after the movie is over. Upgrades to get lots of money.

Duration determines how long the movie will run for. Upgrade this to get guests in and out faster.

Seats determines how many, well, seats there are in the theater. More seats means more people which means bigger payouts when the movie is over.

As to be expected, the theaters are where you are going to make the biggest buck. With some price upgrades, you can make your theater payout well over 10,000 coins per showing.

To get the most out of it, you want to prioritize price and then seats. Movie duration is not too big of a deal, as the rest of your building can benefit from guests still watching movies.

Eventually, you will be able to afford to unlock a new auditorium. New auditoriums are very expensive, but they also naturally make more money than your older ones. You should unlock new auditoriums as soon as possible, as they will provide you with a big income spike.

Watch for Bottlenecks

From here on out, you just have to idle and wait for your theater to start pulling in the big bucks and upgrade your station evenly. The most important thing to do here is to watch for any potential “bottlenecks,” or areas that are getting clogged up and reducing the efficiency of other stations.

If you notice that your ticket lobby queue is staying full very often, it may be time to invest in some speed upgrades. Keep an eye on your parking lot as well, as everything starts there and nothing will matter if guests cannot even get into your movie theater.

Moving on to the Next Theater

Once you unlock all auditoriums, you should be making tons and tons of money. You will eventually be able to purchase the next open theater lot, and you can advance through your career.

When you go to a new theater, you will basically be sent back to the beginning, as you will have to start from scratch at the new theater. That is OK though, because every new theater you purchase adds a permanent bonus to the amount of money you earn, making it easier to start anew.

That’s all for Cinema Tycoon. If you have any other tips or tricks to share, let us know in the comments below!