Are cinemas too expensive
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Whilst I regularly visit the cinema, ticket prices have definitely crept up over the past few years.
Are you allowed to take your own drinks in yet?
Are you allowed to take your own drinks in yet?
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On the other hand, how expensive is expensive? Compare the price of a cinema ticket with one for, say, an Elton John concert and decide for yourself which is better value for money.
Indeed. On the odd occasion I want something to eat in the cinema, i'll take my own food in, but it's rare because I go to the cinema to watch a film and not eat a 3 course meal.
But overall, I do think the cinema is getting too expensive. I had a choice today, pay £4 quid to go and see a film in a cinema an hour's bus ride away or pay £9.50 to see a film in a cinema that's a ten minute bus ride away.
The choice was quite easy
Along with the fact that the gap between a cinema release and its DVD in the shops is not much more than a 3 month period, if that nowadays.
My other local 3 screen cinema in Westgate On Sea is £2.50 mon-fri and £3.50 sat-sun and no over the top prices on snacks and drinks either.
That's great if you have an indie cinema, I live in a town with two Cineworlds (one's about to open) and an Empire. No chance of low prices round here then...
To the point where they didn't bat an eyelid when we had Starbucks with us the last time.
If I chose go and see a film at my local Odeon now it would cost me £9.30 admission on site for a standard film, plus about £4 in travel costs. £13.30 to see one film once, with the possibility of it getting ruined by noisy folk. Nah. Can't be bothered with that any more.
It isn't just the cost that's keeping me away, though. Seemingly increasingly noisy/uncaring audiences, ever longer advert/trailer sections, availability of good quality DVDs/Blu- rays, plus the fact that there just aren't all that many new films I'm fussed about seeing.
It still costs to get there for the taxi journey. So only value for money if a person drives or lives in a city.
Yes, it hits the wallet hard if we want to go as a family with our two teenaged minimum wage-but-not-student daughters. We take our own food some of the time, or just don't bother eating on other occasions.
I'm not surprised the prices have hiked with the rise in piracy/online viewing, but I do object to the fact that with the exception of blockbusters, I'm finding an increasing number of other films are now less than 1.5 hours in length. That's not a film, it's a TV programme!
As a result of the price increases, rather than going once or twice a week, I now go once a month or less.
However, I want to see cinemas survive, so am intrigued in what cinemas of the future will be like. With the huge array of on demand stuff you can get at home, and entire seasons of top class TV shows like Breaking Bad being available first on Netflix, the concept of having to go out to watch a brand new movie is already outdated.
I think cinemas are going to have to offer something new to continue to attract customers and fend off the inevitable attempt by companies like Sky to get the rights to show movies on TV first at some stage.
I don't agree with cinemas when they try to justify their prices by comparing them to football matches or concerts. Im not going to defend football ticket prices, but at least they are live events that you experience in person. Cinemas don't offer that, so isn't comparable.
I live in a town with just one grotty Empire Cinema (formerly an Odeon). It isn't actually too expensive considering it's a part of London, but the price is reflective of the experience - torn up and broken chairs often covered in gum, often incompetent staff (not always but they have a quick turnover), stupid regulations on their lighting that genuinely ruin the film in some screens by causing a headache, often noticeably wonky projections, and though not necessarily a fault of the cinema the fact that the low price attracts groups of teens that are loud and messy (with few adults around to tell them to quieten down). We're getting two new cinemas in the next couple of years - a new Vue, which is likely to be much preferred but much more costly. And a luxury cinema in our shopping centre which is going to be even more expensive still!
Travelling about to other cinemas adds on travel costs of course, and you can only really travel out of London to avoid the prices going up even more.
From me, the cinema has probably lost potential money. I'd sooner go more often, therefore eventually spending more if the experience was better. Having a poor experience that is costly deters me from going again. I'd happily pay £5 each time and see, say, six or seven films a year so they'd be getting over £30 from me. Instead I'll likely only see two films a year, costing only £20 and that's likely split across two cinemas rather than the same one twice... all my friends think similarly so £10 here and there does add up as a major loss in the long run. They get no money from me for food either because it's just as ridiculously expensive.
There needs to be a radical overhaul, or people are just going to turn away more and more. Odeon are now charging £1 more for certain new releases for their first few weeks. Most chain cinemas now seem to be taking away the freedom of choosing your own seat, which is ridiculous and another thing likely to turn me away. Turning up early should grant you the privilege of having a better choice of seats, but now you have to constantly move for people trying to get in and out of their allocated aisles, other people ruining the starts of films by disputing ownership of seats which have been "taken".
Basically, the cinema isn't worth what it costs any more. I guess that's another way of saying it's too expensive - it certainly doesn't justify its cost, when in fact it used to be both cheaper and better!
Poor behaviour from other cinema goers and 25 minutes worth of ads and trailers before the film even starts is a bigger issue for me.
Agreed. I've had my unlmited card for over a year now, got automatically upgraded to unlimited premium (free 3D movies, better discounts, etc.) and over the course of the first year I'd apparently saved £137.70. And that's not including the discounts I've had outside of the cinema in restaurants, etc. i tend to go most weekends, and while i've seen some movies I definitely wouldn't have paid for if i didn't have the card, I've seen some great ones this year too. No problem taking your own food in at my local cieworld either.
For the price of the card, you've only got to see 2 movies a month to get your money's worth.
I tend to turn up 10-15 minutes after the start time to avoid the adverts and catch the trailers.:)
I'd like to see someone trying to take in a pizza or a full 3 course dinner lol
and think its odd that they have a bar (or at least mine does) but you aren't allowed to take your alcoholic drink into the film. Alcohol is a diuretic you'd be wanting to pee every 5 minutes
infact I hate people who get up in the middle of the film and leave to go to the toilet, I think they should have toilets inside the cinema screens and they should show the film in the toilet so you don't miss much lol