It's not just a matter of numbers, Worker's Daily: Is movie tickets expensive in the market | price | box office | industry | audience | movie tickets | ticket prices | movies
At the end of August, the cinema is still bustling. Since breaking the summer box office record of 17.778 billion yuan in 2019 on August 17th, the new record has exceeded 19.5 billion yuan on August 23rd.
While box office sales have been soaring, the discussion of movie ticket prices has once again attracted public attention. In Beijing, a family of five spent over 400 yuan watching a movie; In Hangzhou, some netizens randomly choose to open a regular cinema, and the ticket price for each movie is over 40 yuan; In Guangzhou, there are consumers who haven't seen movie tickets worth over 30 yuan for a long time
Such an example is not an isolated case. According to statistics, the average ticket price per movie during this summer's season is 40.8 yuan, compared to 35.4 yuan in 2019. In addition, as of late August, the average price of movie tickets nationwide in 2023 reached 42.7 yuan, also reaching a new high.
About 10 years ago, at the initial stage of Internet capital entering the film market, various online ticketing platforms carried out ticket subsidy activities in succession. At that time, movie tickets worth 19.9 yuan and 9.9 yuan were everywhere. However, like other similar "burning money" wars, a few years later, all parties in the film industry realized that blindly "bleeding" cannot bring about healthy and prosperous development of the industry. So, after 2018, the intensity of "ticket subsidies" weakened, and movie ticket prices entered an upward trend.
In recent years, with the increasing demands of practitioners and audiences, film production costs have been continuously increasing. On the other hand, the costs of labor, rent, and equipment in cinemas are also increasing. In addition, after experiencing the trough of the previous three years, various sectors in the industry are eager to "revive", which has driven up ticket prices.
Objectively speaking, as long as the price is clearly marked and the price composition is compliant and legal, it is understandable how much a movie ticket is sold in a cinema. However, just like low ticket prices are not sustainable, for the film industry, relying solely on raising ticket prices to profit is no different from going all out to fish.
People who often watch movies may have the experience of going to the cinema for a second or even "N" review of a certain movie, or they may go to IMAX theaters specifically to watch a certain movie. When it comes to price, it's much more expensive than watching a movie in a regular cinema. The reason why people are willing to do this, besides being movie fans, is inevitably because specific films either have outstanding plot, performance, or audio-visual and special effects. In other words, such a movie provides the audience with a full spiritual enjoyment - the money is worth it, the joy is spent.
After years of "experience", most Chinese film audiences have gradually matured their aesthetic and value judgment abilities. The scene where a "bad film" often grossed over 1 billion yuan at the box office is difficult to reproduce. Moreover, even Hollywood blockbusters that were once highly sought after are now difficult to guarantee their success in the Chinese market.
In this context, when the audience complains about the high cost of movie tickets, many people actually think that the experience brought by the movie itself is not worth the fifty or sixty yuan. If similar situations occur frequently, the ultimate result may be that consumers will reduce their expenses on watching movies and instead seek other entertainment activities.
Therefore, the price of movie tickets is not fundamentally a matter of the numbers on the ticket root. For the film industry, such a call poses new requirements for the business model: if not solely relying on box office, can movies explore more diverse revenue generating channels from production to release? Secondly, and more importantly, if you want the audience to think that movie tickets are worth buying, you need to produce more high-quality works.
To be honest, when people talk about a movie, they use the phrase "the ticket price is not cheap, but the movie is really beautiful", which is described in an online language. This movie can "win the hemp".
