Why less and less people are going to cinemas.
Why less and less people are going to cinemas.
It's the ticket price, stupid!
Dear Peter & Peter,
You talked this week how the megaplexes have become soloplexes and show something like 8 screens of "The Dark Knight" and 5 screens of "Tropic Thunder", etc.
Well, I think that if the price of admission to watch theatrical features in cinemas was drastically cut to say $2.00, THEN and only then can the theatrical cinemas really compete against the new ways to watch movies nowadays, such as DVD rentals (Netflix subscriptions, RedBox only $1.00 per night), cable channels like HBO and Cinemax, the Internet where movies (even new ones still in theatrical release) can be watched online, public libraries that buy DVDs (and now even Blu-ray DVDs) and then patrons can view them for FREE!
I think this is what Hollywood and movie distributors really have to do if they want more butts in the seats. They should also add shorts to the features like they used to do in the early days of cinema. This makes the movie-going experience an event, a night out, something to compete with all the home theaters that people have created for themselves right in their own homes.
I think with a low-priced ticket admission, people will be willing to go to theaters and fight the traffic, the parking, the lines, the high-priced movie snacks, the sticky floors, the rude people that won't shut up during the movie, the cellphones going off during the movie, etc. Otherwise, if not for a really cheap admission price, why would someone want to go through all that aggravation and see a movie in a cinema rather than wait and see it on DVD or whatever?
Only by making the price to see a theatrical movie in a cinema be so cheap (go all "Wal-Marty" on it, where LOW PRICE is all that matters), can the movie business really compete with other media formats to lure back movie-goers in the numbers they used to enjoy in the past. Why the movie biz doesn't realize this, is beyond me. I just don't understand how by constantly increasing ticket prices to whatever it is today, $10, $15, $20 per person (I don't even know, since I haven't even seen a movie in a cinema in many years now) the movie biz thinks it can make money in cinematic releases.
They have to slash prices and make the money on VOLUME sales. Cut the price and you lure back people. It's really that simple. If a family of four had to go see a family movie and a ticket costs $15 per person, that's $60 just to get in the door! Then there are the snacks the kids inevitably want, bringing up the price maybe another $20 so. Now we're up to $80. Factor in the gasoline it costs to drive to the movie theater, fighting the ever-increasing traffic out there, the red-lights (that wastes gas just idling there), fighting the crowds getting in and out of the theater parking lot (again wasting gas just idling there) so add another $10-$20 for gasoline, that makes it $90-$100 for just going out to see ONE movie! Is this anyway to make people WANT to go out to a cinema multiplex to see a movie, when there are so many other, cheaper alternatives available to them out there? I don't think so.
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