According to Méliès's memoirs, his initial attempts to sell "A Trip to the Moon" to French fairground exhibitors met with failure because of the film's unusually high price. Finally, Méliès offered to let one such exhibitor borrow a print of the film to screen for free. The applause from the very first showing was so enthusiastic that fairgoers kept the theatre packed until midnight. The exhibitor bought the film immediately, and when he was reminded of his initial reluctance he even offered to add 200 to compensate "for [Méliès's] inconvenience." The film was a pronounced success in France, running uninterrupted at the Olympia music hall in Paris for several months.