Published: Dec 02, 2024

HOYTS Cinemas chooses NCS Australia to ensure a great movie-going experience

Australians love going to the movies, from watching the highs and lows of powerful films to pairing the buttery crunch of popcorn with an indulgent choc top as they experience the wonder of the big screen. As a trusted Cloud Services technology provider, NCS Australia has signed a five-year deal with HOYTS for managed services for their digital channel, including a Microsoft Azure hyperscale service tier and use of Cloudflare, the world’s first connectivity cloud.

HOYTS is one of the world’s leading entertainment companies, operating over 60 cinemas across Australia and New Zealand, with more than 500 screens and over 60,000 seats across the network. Today, HOYTS is the largest single-brand movie exhibitor in Australia and New Zealand.

Each year, HOYTS welcomes millions of guests into their cinemas to enjoy the latest movies and special event presentations. With this in mind, being able to deliver a seamless and frictionless experience is of utmost importance. From the moment movie lovers tap "Buy tickets," the magic of cinema begins.

HOYTS' digital gateway isn't just about transactions – it's where the anticipation of movie night takes flight. Gone are the days of rushing to secure seats or wondering if your favourite showing might sell out. Today's savvy moviegoers are embracing the freedom to lock in their perfect viewing experience with just a few clicks. 

Behind this seamless experience stands NCS Australia, orchestrating every digital ticket purchase. The NCS Australia team is powering the technology to ensure each transaction flows smoothly, letting moviegoers focus on what really matters – whether to go for the large or extra-large popcorn (and if they should pair their popcorn with a choc top). 

For HOYTS, their online ticketing system isn't just convenient – it's mission-critical. Even a brief system hiccup can send ripples through their operations, potentially costing them more than just ticket sales. It's why they've made rock-solid reliability their non-negotiable standard, ensuring the show goes on. 

The five-year Hosted Managed Services deal encompasses: 

• Managed service with 24x7 support
• Optimisation and management of Microsoft Azure cloud environments
• Provisioning and maintaining cloud resources, including virtual machines, storage, and networking components, with use of Cloudflare, the world’s first connectivity cloud
• Continuous monitoring of infrastructure performance and health
• Governance support to enhance observability and minimise downtime, using LogicMonitor and other leading tools, including NCS’ ServiceNow for IT service management
• Innovation fund and NCS Future Frontiers workshops to generate ideation and collaboration initiatives. 

“Our mission-critical customer-facing digital properties are the lifeblood of our business at HOYTS, and finding the right cloud services partner was essential. Following a rigorous RFP process, we selected NCS Australia for their proven track record in delivering high-quality, mission-critical services. The migration to NCS has been seamless, reaffirming that we made the right choice. Their expertise in managing mission-critical environments gives me confidence in our ability to deliver highly reliable and performant digital experiences which are essential in meeting and exceeding the expectations of our customers.”

Adam Wrightson, Group IT Director, HOYTS Cinema Technology Group

In the competitive landscape of modern entertainment, HOYTS faced a classic technical dilemma: How to build and maintain a digital infrastructure that could not only handle extreme traffic spikes, but also optimise revenue during quieter periods. The stakes for inaction are high – every millisecond of downtime can mean lost ticket sales, customer frustration, and potential brand reputation damage. 

“Our wealth of experience in the media and communications industry allowed us to apply critical, relevant knowledge to HOYTS’ problem and create a solution that was not only fit for today, but also adaptable for HOYTS’ future,” shares Zoran Ojurovic, Executive Director, Client Services, NCS Australia. 

A 5-year managed services contract has been signed. NCS Australia has shown we can align and support HOYTS’ core platform and has been appointed to provide HOYTS with a top-tier hosted managed service underpinned by Microsoft Azure, leveraging our strength as a trusted Microsoft partner. Cloudflare is a cloud-based platform that provides content delivery network services, cloud cybersecurity and DDoS mitigation, and is also integral to the service offering.

NCS Australia brings deep expertise driving digital transformation, with the Azure platform providing HOYTS with flexibility, scalability and the high performance they need. A shared service model is enabling us to work in lockstep. As needed, a team of specialists can be called upon to support project activities, helping drive efficiencies and enhanced outcomes for long-term success. 

Several key requirements have been built into the platform service offering: 

High performance architecture 

• Ability to handle increases in traffic through scalability during blockbuster releases
• Fast response times even under heavy load

Resilience engineering 

• Automatic failover capabilities
• Regional redundancy
• Circuit breakers for downstream dependencies 

Advanced observability

• Real-time performance metrics
• Predictive analytics for capacity planning
• Anomaly detection 

Security enhancements

• DDoS protection through Cloudflare
• Rate limiting through Cloudflare

More Value. Better Quality. Different. 

HOYTS and NCS Australia are transforming HOYTS’ core digital platform, demonstrating how modern architecture can go further than solving technical challenges and directly drive business growth. By coupling technical performance with business objectives, we are enabling technical excellence to translate to business success and enabling a more seamless digital ticketing experience for HOYTS’ customers.

For HOYTS Cinemas, three out of every four transactions are now self-serve, either online or using digital kiosks in the foyers of its cinemas. NCS Australia is powering the process that ensures these transactions are handled correctly, supporting Australians having enjoyable movie experiences.