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Summer Blockbusters: Moviegoers Demand Zero Downtime

Michelle McLean

More than half of Americans (57 percent) plan to buy movie tickets using websites or apps to avoid waiting in line at the theatre, according to ScaleArc's Summer Blockbuster Survey. The study, which examined Americans’ attitudes and behavior when it comes to purchasing movie tickets this summer, found that 62 percent of Americans said they would be upset if they were purchasing movie tickets and the site or app went down, and 90 percent agreed that movie ticketing websites and apps should have no downtime this summer.

As Americans head to the theatres this summer, sites and apps selling tickets to the hottest releases of the season must be ready to handle the huge demand that comes with it, or they risk losing customers and revenue. Our study confirmed that Americans demand movie ticketing websites and apps that are never down and always fast – especially during the peak summer blockbuster season – and many Americans won’t hesitate to move on to a competitor website or app if they aren’t satisfied with their performance.

Americans Hate to Wait

According to the survey, Americans’ #1 reason for buying movie tickets using websites or apps is that they hate waiting in line (57 percent). They also purchase tickets using websites or apps because they like knowing they have tickets to a film at their preferred screening time (47 percent) and like being able to pick out seats in advance (38 percent).

More than half (62 percent) of Americans would be disgruntled if they were purchasing movie tickets and the website or app went down, and nearly all (90 percent) agreed that movie ticketing websites and apps should have zero downtime this summer.

The study revealed that 39 percent of Americans who encounter problems while trying to purchase movie tickets using websites or apps will be quick to move on to a competitor. Members of the tech community were particularly intolerant of digital performance issues – 45 percent said they would visit a competitor site or app if a movie reservation system was experiencing downtime.

Other top responses to encountering downtime on a movie ticketing website/app included:

■ Be forced to wait in line: 44 percent

■ Choose a different theatre: 36 percent

■ Never again choose the reservation site: 23 percent

Top Movies Driving Online Ticket Sales

In spite of viral hype, Americans won’t be rushing out to see Ghostbusters this summer. Instead, when asked which movies they’ll be going online to purchase tickets, Americans first said Finding Dory and then Star Trek.

Top five movies Americans are excited to see this summer:

Finding Dory: 42 percent

Star Trek: 33 percent

Jason Bourne 4: 32 percent

Suicide Squad: 29 percent

Independence Day 2: 24 percent

Independence Day 2 moved up the list considerably among Americans working in tech, who picked it as their first choice (43 percent) followed by Star Trek (38 percent).

With a vote of 8 percent each, the fewest Americans are excited to see The Conjuring 2 and Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates.

Michelle McLean is VP of Marketing at ScaleArc.

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Summer Blockbusters: Moviegoers Demand Zero Downtime

Michelle McLean

More than half of Americans (57 percent) plan to buy movie tickets using websites or apps to avoid waiting in line at the theatre, according to ScaleArc's Summer Blockbuster Survey. The study, which examined Americans’ attitudes and behavior when it comes to purchasing movie tickets this summer, found that 62 percent of Americans said they would be upset if they were purchasing movie tickets and the site or app went down, and 90 percent agreed that movie ticketing websites and apps should have no downtime this summer.

As Americans head to the theatres this summer, sites and apps selling tickets to the hottest releases of the season must be ready to handle the huge demand that comes with it, or they risk losing customers and revenue. Our study confirmed that Americans demand movie ticketing websites and apps that are never down and always fast – especially during the peak summer blockbuster season – and many Americans won’t hesitate to move on to a competitor website or app if they aren’t satisfied with their performance.

Americans Hate to Wait

According to the survey, Americans’ #1 reason for buying movie tickets using websites or apps is that they hate waiting in line (57 percent). They also purchase tickets using websites or apps because they like knowing they have tickets to a film at their preferred screening time (47 percent) and like being able to pick out seats in advance (38 percent).

More than half (62 percent) of Americans would be disgruntled if they were purchasing movie tickets and the website or app went down, and nearly all (90 percent) agreed that movie ticketing websites and apps should have zero downtime this summer.

The study revealed that 39 percent of Americans who encounter problems while trying to purchase movie tickets using websites or apps will be quick to move on to a competitor. Members of the tech community were particularly intolerant of digital performance issues – 45 percent said they would visit a competitor site or app if a movie reservation system was experiencing downtime.

Other top responses to encountering downtime on a movie ticketing website/app included:

■ Be forced to wait in line: 44 percent

■ Choose a different theatre: 36 percent

■ Never again choose the reservation site: 23 percent

Top Movies Driving Online Ticket Sales

In spite of viral hype, Americans won’t be rushing out to see Ghostbusters this summer. Instead, when asked which movies they’ll be going online to purchase tickets, Americans first said Finding Dory and then Star Trek.

Top five movies Americans are excited to see this summer:

Finding Dory: 42 percent

Star Trek: 33 percent

Jason Bourne 4: 32 percent

Suicide Squad: 29 percent

Independence Day 2: 24 percent

Independence Day 2 moved up the list considerably among Americans working in tech, who picked it as their first choice (43 percent) followed by Star Trek (38 percent).

With a vote of 8 percent each, the fewest Americans are excited to see The Conjuring 2 and Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates.

Michelle McLean is VP of Marketing at ScaleArc.

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The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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