Industry watchers are begrudgingly admitting that the total number of customers attending movie screenings has fallen sharply over the past 7 years than gross box office receipts would have you believe. The reason of course is that the average ticket price charged by today’s movie theaters is significantly higher than the average ticket price charged before the pandemic. So while this year’s total box office gross is running higher than at any point since 2019, attendance is down 30%. Movie theatres have also made up some of the difference by increasing the average “per cap” income earned for add-on sales beyond the ticket purchase, which comes mostly from concessions purchases.
Another factor to consider in the increase in ticket price is that exhibitors have invested heavily to offer their customers an increasingly expensive and awe-inspiring night out at the movies, with luxury recliner seating, the latest technology in laser projection and digital sound, unique big-screen formats such as IMAX, Dolby Cinema and ScreenX panoramic displays and novelty motion seating systems including D-BOX and 4Dx programmed to move, vibrate, and tilt in real-time sync with the action on the screen. These amenities are expensive to install and maintain, but one could argue are necessary to appeal to moviegoers who have the option to stay home to watch movies on a TV-sized big screen.
So perhaps, the in-theatre movie experience is shifting up market, with lower foot traffic but a higher spend per patron. This could be somewhat of an oversimplification, since many movies are doing quite well that are not optimized for an abundance of lumens and decibels, such as the surprisingly strong horror hits OBSESSION and BACKROOMS. The appeal for moviegoers to venture out to the cinema to see those films was the experience of seeing buzzy and compelling horror in a darkened room with friends and strangers, rather than overwhelming technology.
