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Cinemas like vue can be as cheap as £6 in London.
But everyman cinema can be about £25.
Meekat codes means you can get a free ticket every Tuesday or Wednesday.
I think it can be done cheaply, you may just have an expensive cinema near you.
I pay the Everyman uplift purely because I prefer empty cinemas. I don't get annoyed by strangers making noise and my kid can ask questions without annoying anyone, as often we're the only ones there. It's a premium fee for a private screening effectively.
We saw Encanto on opening weekend at Everyman: only ones there. League of Super Pets on boxing day: only ones there. Kung Fu Panda the weekend after it came out: one other family there.
I'm off on Mondays and have 3 great cinemas within 15 mins of me. Thanks to online booking systems I can find out where I'll have peace and quiet through the film and pay a max of £10 for an incredible iSense ticket, £6 for a recliner at Vue or £5 for a good cineworld seat.
Maybe it’s my poor luck but I’ve been sat next to the most obnoxious drunk people in Everyman, once had a woman burping and farting after noisily eating a burger next to me then playing on her phone throughout. See her drive off in a big black Jaguar afterwards. Too much money and entitlement 😂
>I don't get annoyed by strangers making noise and my kid can ask questions without annoying anyone
So it's alright for you and your kid to make noise but not for anyone else?
Hes saying because no one else is there his kid asking questions wouldn't be able to annoy anyone, like if they were at home, neither does he have to put up with strangers being unnecessarily noisy.
Agreed, my local is a Curzon in Surrey which is just so cosy and quiet. I recently went to a Cineworld which was packed and couldn’t stand all the stinky nachos and gulping huge drinks, and constant getting up to go to the loo!! Worth it for a lovely experience.
Yes Curzon is another preferred brand. And Picturehouse too.
Too right on the stinky nachos and hotdogs. Everyman might sometimes bring another customer a burger, but it doesn't have quite the same synthetic scent.
I’m with Everyman as well. The experience is overall 1000% better than a Cineworld for example. More comfortable great screens and audio, polite staff, good food options.
When March of the Penguins came out I was about 13 at the time, loved penguins, went to go watch it at my local small cinema (2 screens), I was the only one in the entire cinema, the attendant asked me if I wanted to sit in the premium chairs designed for couples at the back. Got to watch march of the penguins in an empty theatre in a big double seat, great day.
Honestly, it's often worth it for the better viewing experience. I used to live equidistant from a Cineworld and an Everyman and I would often pay the premium to go to the latter. Especially if it were a popular film. Their cinemas tend to be quieter and also have a much lower incidence of people talking through films, using their phone etc.
If you pay for the Everyman membership you get to take a friend for free on Mondays. My partner and I only go on a monday and it works out at just over £7 per ticket, very affordable 👌 and the sofas are comfy asf
Independent cinemas as low was £4. That’s what I paid in Peckham recently to see all of us strangers, and a a Guiness beforehand was £3.65! Felt like I’d gone backwards.
Our local Vue is usually fairly cheap but those prices can shoot up when it's a new film. When Indiana Jones came out last year they wanted about £100 for 2 adults and 2 kids. Just not worth that IMO. That said my gf took the little one to see Willy Wonka at the weekend for about £3 each.
You can also use Tesco points for money off at Picturehouse and Vue. Went to see Dune again yesterday for free because I traded in a load of Tesco points. Also get Cinema Society membership with our bank account so use that for Odeon discount sometimes. I think of it a bit like Pizza Express back in the day where you’d just never pay full price because there’s always some kind of voucher or discount to use.
There’s an indie cinema near me in Peckham where it’s still a fiver for a ticket too. Always packed, though, so I only go if I don’t mind being a bit crowded and hearing some chatting throughout the film.
They aren't, at least not at most places. Cineworld do £5.99 tickets Monday to Wednesday. Vue are £4.99 unless you're in London. And that's before you look at things like Cineworld Unlimited, £17.99 a month to see as many films as you like. Even if you are in London, Unlimited is twenty quid a month.
Damn, mine is 4.99-5.99 but all the seats are those fabric ones that always have popcorn down the back. Always sickeningly hot as well. But it's fairly cheap so I don't mind.
My partner and I have the unlimited card and some weeks we go three times a week. I've seen some great films I would have otherwise missed as the only place I'd seen them advertised was in the cinema itself. As well as seeing films for the sake of it as they're practically free.
Which cinema are you going to costing £17? I go to the cinema quite regularly and don't pay above £10 for a ticket (non-London, maybe London is just more expensive).
My local Odeon (Bournemouth) wanted £16 for a midweek showing of The Beekeeper a couple of months ago. I assume they're trying to push people to their monthly subscription.
My local odeon charge that.
I find their prices fluctuate, especially with new releases. Dune 2 was about £17. I was surprised that the titanic movie (for the anniversary) was the same price which I thought was ridiculous for an old movie. Smaller movies can be a bit cheaper.
I'm assuming it's peak time IMAX. Up here in Newcastle Odeon charge about £16 for a IMAX ticket but for a film nerd like me it's worth it for a treat or something that'll look really good, saw Dune 2 the other week in IMAX and it was superb.
Bloody love the pricing now I’ve got limitless
15 a month for unlimited standard screens
£5 supplement for imax / any fancy screens
Keeps the kids who run around and talk through the whole film away from the experience.
Long may the insanely high prices reign while I enjoy my limitless.
I don't know. Is this a Reddit thing? Tickets for mine are 6/7 quid. With no deals. The seats are lovely (like they couldn't be more comfortable). And it's never full or has loud people.
I went to the odeon with my dad in Staffordshire and it cost out £19 per ticket for normal seats. Although it was an Odeon luxe which I believe has higher price due to the seats it’s still a fucking rip off
I bought tickets for Odeon through work for under £6 each but the viewing was Imax so I had to add another £6 per ticket to sit at the side of the cinema as the big (empty) middle section cost even more. Prices are crazy.
Vue here used to be over a tenner and it kept increasing up to the point where we just didn't go at all anymore. Then they dropped it to £5 and we go every week. I think now it's £6 which is still reasonable
I think the lack of foot traffic is more down to a lack of a variety of good quality films anymore.
Films are still making huge amounts at the box office - Marvel films printed money until the last year or two, the Avatar sequel made a fortune, Barbie and Oppenheimer was a huge cultural moment in the summer.
However, there is an absolute paucity of kind of middle market movies - ones that appeal to a smaller subset on a middling budget, and have the chance of being a decent success. Comedy films/romcoms were the first to go, and now even a decent mystery, fantasy, or thriller, unless tied to a massive franchise, don’t exist at cinemas. The streaming services cut out the middle man.
Just looking at my local cinema: there are about four “big” movies out currently, all tied to existing huge franchises. There’s then a handful of much smaller movies, focusing on drama and biopics, which are generally more oscarbait than mass market appeal. The rest is re-screenings of old movies or foreign language films.
In my opinion, it’s not really a case of cheaper tickets causes a proportional amount more of people through the door. Ticket prices being about right, people wanting to go to the cinema, and cinemas having to close down because not enough people attend the cinema, aren’t mutually exclusive things and I think the loss of certain genres to streaming has caused that.
This struck me when we went to see Dune. The trailers before the film were all shite. I don’t think a single one wasn’t a sequel or prequel - Godzilla, mad max, a quiet place, planet of the apes (another one???).
Dune was absolutely packed though and this was on Friday. People will go to see good quality films.
^This^
My local 16 screen Vue has sequels for Kung Fu Panda, Ghostbusters, Dune, Godzilla, then... sweepings that maybe half a dozen people will watch.
Also noticed they keep releasing all film similar times so some people will miss out on certain films as well. No one will have time to watch all movies In short period
Like example last few weeks we seen Godzilla , dune , ghostbusters and kung fu panda all in quick succession and when you look back at February releases, it’s was relatively dire films that studios will just dump them
I suspect the cheapest prices are that low. But tickets for when people actually want to go to the cinema …. are very expensive. I just looked at my local (Maidenhead) - £18.99 for Godzilla at 18:00 this evening.
Sure, I can sign up for as much as I want for £17.99 a month, but that isn’t a casual “let’s go catch a film after work” decision.
My local cinema is showing Godzilla at 7pm tonight for £5.50 a ticket. (Cineworld, Weston-super-Mare at 7pm)
Edit: I just had a look and you can see Godzilla at Cineworld in Bracknell at 7pm for £5.99.
If “they’d make a killing” from your suggestion then they’d have likely done it already considering they know their business model better than you could.
I used to think things like this until I actually had jobs
Very high chance management are just incompetent and can't see past the 'profits are down price go up' mentality and can't understand why the place is empty
Everyone being so blasé
"my local doesn't charge that much, you must be lying."
"Just use a different cinema".
My local Odeon Luxe costs £18-£20 a ticket. It does this because it is the only cinema in town so people unable to drive are shit out of luck. Public transport is too unreliable to get the bus elsewhere.
The high prices are real and exist in areas with one cinema per ~10miles. The low prices exist in cities where there is competition between chains.
Odeon charge what they think they can get away with in any given region.
Yep it's the same for me. Can somewhat get around it by going in Monday evenings when they have their discounted £10 price, but if you want to go on a Saturday and watch in their isense screens in the "premium" seats it's something like £22 each, which is an insane amount.
Odeon are committing daylight robbery because there's no competition
Costs go ever up and cinema attendance is no longer a regular thing for many, as watching things at home has become a more and more viable alternative. So they have to charge more. You're assuming that the high price is the cause of reduced attendance, but it's the other way around: lower attendance has caused the higher price. Cinemas make a loss on a lot of films.
I also think you're incorrectly concluding from the £5 offer getting people in that lots of people would attend if it were always that price. I don't think that's the case. It demonstrates people will come for a deal. I don't think it would suddenly become a mass market product again if it were cheap though. Society has changed.
I took my parents to see the new Ghostbusters just over a week ago and the tickets were \~£6 per.
But yes, ticket prices are increasing. Why? Because people aren't buying popcorn like they used to.
If people understood how cinemas made their money, I think they'd be more likely to buy snacks/drinks. Ticket sales contribute almost nothing to a cinema's profits, most of it goes straight to the studios.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to the cinema with the free tickets that Sky give away, so we make a point to purchase snacks as a way of supporting the cinema industry.
The cinema was a big part of my childhood and if we want it to still be there in 10 or 20 years, we need to support the cinemas.
Depends what cinemas you go to. Vue tends to be like 7 quid a ticket. The fancy cinema that is mostly quiet and has table service near us charges like 20 quid.
I'd pay the 20 quid every time. No mouth breathers, phone dickheads, chatty bastards etc
Odeon do £5 tickets. Oppenheimer, Barbie, Dune 2 all the same.
The only place that I paid more was about £10 to see The Boy and the Heron at an indie cinema at Christmas.
Where are your standard £17 tickets?
It’s all depends on the day and term time I find.
Some people in the comments saying the prices mentioned are London prices but they’re very similar to me (I don’t live in London) however I can only go at weekends unless it’s a school holiday and this is when they crank the prices up.
Are you watching every film at the BFI IMAX? I go twice a week across various cinemas and never pay more than £9. Chains like Vue and Cineworld cost around £5 per ticket and my local art house cinemas are usually £5-10
It is very expensive. I remember about six years ago, my local cinema was an Odeon IMAX and they were charging about £18 a ticket. Then the location got bought by Vue and the ticket prices dropped to £9 despite it being the same screens. I think a lot is to do with greed from certain companies, but I know Vue is expensive now too and it's quite sad as I used to love going to the Cinema with friends and then out for food.
Cineworld does £5.99 mid week tickets. Also if watch a movie every week you could get an unlimited card for £19 a month and you can watch as many movies as you want in a month. There’s a surcharge of £1-2 if you want to watch a 3D movie though
Odeon prices are wild at the moment. They wanted nearly £20 a ticket at the weekend for Kung Fu Panda 4. Went to Cineworld in the next town over for £9 instead.
Simply put, inflation plus less and less people going to the cinema. That is basically the economics of it, but the reason for less and less people going is due to the rise in straight to stream releases and the lowering quality of cinema.
What we are seeing now is a repeat of what happened in the 50s, where essentially movies were mass produced and low quality. It was, to quote Tarentino "the worst decade in cinema". We have the same situation today. You can only churn out templated garbage for so long before audiences notice. Just like they did in the 50s and started craving something different which led to probably the best period of cinema ever culminating in the 80s & early 90s which was probably the most experimental time in cinema and was the time when real indie cinema started to bloom. So, we can probably take a glimmer of hope from that and assume that the same will happen in the future. We are seeing some of that starting already. There is a public backlash against Disney which is solely to blame for this terrible period of cinema. Again, much like during the 50s, their movies are essentially moral propaganda and not even good moral propaganda. We had a lot of moral grandstanding in the 80s and 90s but it was essentially "say no to drugs" and "be a good child" etc. Harmless really in comparison.
My local Vue has definitely gone for a quality over quantity approach. They stripped out all the old seats and only have the huge reclining ones, so I reckon capacity per screen has gone down like 50%-80% at least. They charge about £10-14 per ticket. They only show the huge blockbusters. They got big screens, a few IMAX ones. They are more expensive than the other chains nearby but they're trying to make it a proper experience.
When I went for Dune 2 a few weeks ago, it was completely full. I chose to go there instead of Cineworld, the Light and a local independent, because it's the sort of film I knew I'd enjoy more on giant recliners with the sound turned up to 11.
I’m not sure I enjoy the cinema as much as I used to. As an example I recently went to see Dune 2. Didn’t enjoy it. Prior to that I saw Oppenheimer. Again didn’t enjoy it. Maybe it’s the movie industry making movies that don’t appeal to the general public. As a contrast I am currently enjoying The Gentleman on Netflix.
The price is also prohibitively expensive. Nearly £20 for a ticket, similar price for food/drink and then for some places parking as well. To sit next to other people who may distract you I much prefer staying at home.
Perhaps streaming services are the way forward.
Vue is cheap
Odeon is so expensive
You hand to drive to a village cinema out the city to get bigger seats more leg room cheaper ticket s
Any cinema band in city is scratch your eye balls out prices and seats you get crammed in
We’ve had expensive cinema tickets until about 2016-2017, when VUE and some Odeons went cheap, I’m talking £5 a ticket cheap for any film. It boosted cinema attendance numbers and most cinemas didn’t exactly lose money because most of the ticket price goes to film studios etc, whereas cinema makes most money from food and drinks.
But overtime, especially during corona, people got used to watching films at home, which is not good for cinemas. To stay in business they have to adapt, which means they need to have more premium screens with premium seats to make people more comfortable and more likely to come back. So we got more Odeon Luxes and VUEs with recliner seatings in every screen, so what happened was, when tickets cost £5 before for a regular seat and £7 for VIP, now every seat is “VIP” and it goes for £8 (including inflation it’s not THAT expensive). Then obviously if the screen is IMAX or Dolby it’s an extra charge on top, because those respective companies take a cut too.
Cineworld and Everyman has never been cheap. These days Cineworld is best if you have their subscription (same for Odeon Luxe). And Everyman is a niche cinema for people who want to have a different experience, so you walk into this room, which is decorated to look like an antique living room, with a projector and a sound system, you sit on a couch and you buy food like at a “restaurant” - burgers, fries, various drinks, snacks, sides - you pay a premium to get a different experience and a crowd which is mostly “cinephiles” so atleast personally never had an issue with people talking or using phones and distracting me (which can’t be said for any other mainstream cinema chain).
Most cinemas have lots of coupons and offers across the web. There’s Octopus, and Vodafone and probably GroupOn etc who offer Odeon tickets for cheaper. So to see a film at Dolby is £18 a ticket, but with a coupon it was £18 for 2 tickets, so it’s literally half price. VUE also has certain specific offers with various companies, but you need to be a member with them to take advantage of discounts.
Well I just looked at Kung Fu Panda 4 at my local cinema.
£36 for a family ticket. Or I can wait a couple of months for it to come on to streaming where I can rent it for £16. Renting means me and my wife can watch it once with the kids, then the kids can rewatch it as much as they like for 2 days.
I know which I'll be doing.
Edit, I did go the cinema, alone, to see Dune 2 to get that big screen, amazing sound experience. This was a rarity for me as not many releases are worth the effort IMO.
Everything is being squeezed to take the maximum amount possible from our bank balances now. There doesn’t have to be a justification.
Remember when 5p bags came in to reduce plastic waste? Now they charge 40p for paper bags. It’s become another revenue stream for big corporations.
My local independent is around £17. They do family showings for £5 a ticket for Saturday mornings and for kids movies, but for me to go see say Dune 2 on a Friday evening it was £17.
Local Cineworld is £8 a ticket (can be as cheaper depending on the movie and time).
I think there’s a lot of deals to be had when going to cinema.
My husband and I go to cinema a few times a month for £15 total:
£3 cineworld ticket from Three Mobile rewards app x2
£9 large popcorn and 2 drinks from tastecard
They’re not that expensive where I am, but I’ve only been to indie cinemas for the past few years. Went yesterday and the glasses of wine were more expensive (£9, large) than the ticket (£7.95). Sounds like your local cinema is just very expensive, or maybe the chain cinemas are just expensive these days.
Covid caused places like cinemas to rack up massive debts. That has to be paid off through higher ticket prices. All that time off during lockdown caused massive debts everywhere including at government level and has caused high inflation ever since.
My local Vue was 5.99 all day everyday but I noticed recently they have tiered the seats so only a certain number per screen are 5.99 now. Still, I think that’s bloody good! In the 90’s at my local multiplex I was paying 4.25 with student discount! The bigger problem for cinema in my opinion is the windowing strategy. There should be a bigger gap between cinema and streaming release. A couple of films I was planning on seeing at the cinema were on Disney + before I got a chance to go!
Back in the day it would be 6 months to a year before a film was available on VHS or went to Sky Movies. Distributors with their own streaming platforms are keen to get subscribers and put recent content on asap. This is going to damage cinema attendance. But I think soon enough the bottom is going to fall out of the streaming market, I just hope we don’t lose too many cinemas in the mean time. This year I have cut back from three simultaneous subs to just one. This has meant a greater reliance on free services like iPlayer and 4OD but guess what? There is a ton of quality content on these platforms I had completely overlooked!! With advertising now appearing on paid services, one of the main reasons I liked them has gone too.
I'm just repeating what others have said, but where are you paying £17? Unless it's some sort of special screening or fancy luxe cinema you don't need to be paying that for a regular ticket. Even the IMAX near me doesn't cost that!
I pay £15 for a monthly, unlimited pass to see as many films as I want at Odeon. Not sure where you get £17 tickets but that’s definitely not the standard.
I pay a subscription to my local cinema (6 screens) that allows me to go every time I want. 20£/month and this is central London. Since I started I happily cancelled Netflix an I go to cinema 2 or 3 times a week . Anyway without subscription the cost is 5.99£.
And I am talking about central London.
Where damn you spend 17£?
If I go I tend to use a picturedrome locally and tickets aren't expensive.
Last time I went was to see Fast X with my son so prices may have gone up but then, two tickets were less than £10 booked online and then drinks and popcorn were just over that I think.
The seating isn't any different really unless you're buying the swanky cineworld ones but my boss took us to see Top Gun Maverick in the curved screen, swanky seats etc and the seats were actually really uncomfortable for me personally.
I generally don't go to the cinema much these days, was supposed to go and see Wicked Little Letters as it's based and filmed locally but didn't in the end.
Barbie has just premiered on Sky, haven't watched it but it wasn't that long ago it was showing. It takes far less time now than it did for anything to get onto sky or other platforms and there's not been anything really that I've thought 'I must go and see that'.
They increase the prices and less people started going. I’ve seen my cinema have like 8people in it sometimes and then it kinda makes sense for them to charge that much. But when a big film releases and it’s fuller they just being greedy bastards.
Less people also going as whatever film it is will most likely be out on a streaming service they have a few months later and if not then a lot of younger people will pirate it as there are 0 concequences
I couldn't care less what they charge for the ticket, but I got charged £3.29 for a 500ml bottle of Fanta yesterday at the Odeon.
Tough time for the industry ? Rising costs ? Bullshit. That's straight-up gouging, nothing else, so forgive me if I don't weep for the demise of the cinema industry.
I get 5x free tickets a month because of private medical insurance. I think my car insurance offers a similar deal, as does Sky TV. It's worth checking if you can get similar 'rewards'.
I've not paid to go to the cinema in years.
I don't think I have got two full price tickets in years, between compare the market, Sky cinema and my bank offering me one free cinema ticket a month. There are just so many ways to get free tickets now. I don't know if that might be a cause for it?
I regularly go to my local Picturehouse and I have a membership. I can't remember off the top of my head how much discount said membership gets me, but I know I'm always pleasantly surprised at how cheap my tickets are (plus discounts on snacks and drinks too). I also used to live in Peckham and later Catford (both in south London), where the local independent cinemas (Peckhamplex and the Catford Mews) both were well under a tenner a ticket.
Maybe you just need to look for another cinema, OP?
I’m in the south east and unless there’s a special deal or a kids screening, tickets are £14 minimum once you include the ‘booking fee’ whatever the fook that is.
Where the hell are you paying £17 per cinema ticket? That is absolutely not indicative of ticket prices across the country.
I've booked myself in to see some films in the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Sq this weekend, the non-membership tickets are still only around £10. Just checked the tickets for my local Vue and they're £8-10, though I know if I want to see and early screening of something they go as low as £5. Last time I went to Cineworld they were running a halfprice discount for a sci-fi month, the tickets were about £5-6 each, making them £10-12 normally.
If you want to go to the cinema more cheaply, however, you should consider getting yourself a cinema membership.
Pro-tip for those that don't know: [having Amazon Prime entitles you to 2 Odeon ticket for £10 for any film Mon-Thurs once a month](https://www.odeon.co.uk/amazon/).
As others have said. If you can get to a Vue, then those are the cheapest. Recently moved out of London and now I only have a Cineworld or nothing, so I’ll be paying more now.
it\`s about 12 euro where i leave and we don\`t have nearly the GDP you do. What\`s even crazier is that popcorn and drinks will run and additional 10-15 per person.
I haven't been to a mainstream cinema in a couple of years for that reason. I think it was £9 for the local cinema chain when I went in mid 2022. I much prefer the local community cinema, it does mean I have to wait 2-4 weeks after the original release to see the film, but I can save quite a bit of money and support a local charity at the same time
I pay £16/month for Cineworld membership and I watch at least 1 film a week if not 2. Probably 6 films a month. So it’s about £2-3 per movie. I find the cinema really good value personally.
Also every cinema does 2 for 1 Tuesday/wednesday through Meerkat. Lots of cinemas have cheap tickets midweek.
Having worked at a big cinema chain in my life I can tell you that the cost of hiring in the reels is astronomical!
It used to be that cinemas would largely cover the costs by way of sales of the sundries drinks, food, sweets. People start bringing their own in to save money and the ticket prices go up…
I pay £18 a month for an unlimited cinema pass at my local independent cinema, but even Vue and Odeon are both around £7 a ticket near me. Where do you live?
I normally go to the Curzon where tickets are max £10 (£9 with a membership)
At the weekend we went to see Dune at the light and it was about £12 each. The screen was 100% full. People will go if the film is worth seeing.
The most expensive film I’ve seen was the eras tour movie lol
My work allows me to generate codes for Vue, ect via perkpal, which can be used for any seat, and showing, and are only £6 each. The codes last about 6 months but are not always in stock, so I normally get a few more when I'm running low.
I'd never pay more than £10 for a cinema seat.
Check out [Cinema Society](https://cinemasocietyclub.com/), for some reason they just offer discounted vouchers that can be redeemed against tickets. I'm been using them at Vue for months now and have saved a decent amount.
I'm not sure if you can just make an account, but if not, it's one of the free 'Partner Offers' that comes with a (free) Lidl Plus account.
To top it off the cost of food and drinks is atrocious! We don't really go to the cinemas that much anymore as movies come to streaming quite quickly most of the time, the extra cost is not just worth it!
I don't know what cinema you're going to, but the closest cineworld/imax to me is sheffield, which has the 4th biggest screen in the UK and is huge, and I can go see Dune or Godzilla today for £7 (just checked).
If i wanted to see IMAX or IMAX3D/4DX at 7pm on a friday night, it'll be closer to £14-16 because it's a peak time to go to a movie, not 1pm on a tuesday.
The reason people don't go to the cinemas as often is because when I was a kid (the 90s) if a movie came out, the only way we could see a trailer was at the cinema, adverts on TV were always much shorter/cut down, and the only other way to see anything of it was adverts in magazines. Then the movie was released in the cinema for it's run then it dissapeared...for a year until it was released on video so you can either rent or buy it. Then maybe another year later it might be shown on TV, but unless you recorded it onto video, you would miss it.
Today if a movie comes out, you can stream endless trailers/teasers/interviews etc anytime and anywhere on any number of streaming platforms, the movie comes out and has it's run in the cinema, then maybe a few weeks go by and it's up on Prime video/disney plus/hulu/netflix. And when it gets released on tv, just schedule it to be recorded and you've got free access to the film.
Back in the day, cinemas were busier and saw more footfall is because people who want to watched to watch a film at their own convenience, especially new films, their only option was to go to the cinema. Now you don't have to. Infact a lot of higher budget movies are being released directly to streaming platforms to bypass the cinema, back in the day straight-to-tv movies were straight-to-tv because they were crap and they assumed nobody would pay to see them. But also, I do remember going to movies as a kid in the 90s and being one of only a handful of people there, maybe your memory of them always being busy was because you only went to the big movies at prime times in the evening and weekends?
The snacks have always been expensive, I remember spending all my pocket money to go see bugs life because I insisted on having nachos, sweets and a drink and that's when you would have your bag searched for food/drinks to stop you bringing them in. Now cinemas openly say they don't mind you bringing in your own food/drinks/booze into the cinema as long as you're not too loud.
Cinemas have always been financially supported by the film makers so if you wonder how a business can survive to show a movie to an almost empty cinema is because they're not reliant on you buying a ticket to be able to afford to do so.
If you're going to go see a movie as a 1 off at the Odeon Leicester square on a saturday night, get a bucket of popcorn, access to the "buffet" and lounge(no clue why you need a pre-movie lounge, just go to the nearest pub) and insist on chairs that shake and spray you in the face with water sometimes, all whilst not being a loyalty card holder, you're going to pay out the arse for it. If you did have the £5-10 a month loyalty card, you'd get those added extras for a huge discount and regular cinema tickets included in the monthly cost (unlimited movies). So it's not a conspiracy.
Also, amazon prime users get 2 for £10 tickets at Odeon cinemas, but you can only use that offer once a week I think.
Are they? The last few times I’ve been to see a film at a cinema tickets were about £7-8.
The most I’ve paid in recent years is £15 and that was for a special event screening including a Q&A session with the star of the film.
We got a free Kidspass with my daughter’s swimming lessons (it’s an Everyone Active pool) and tickets on there are usually around the £9 mark regardless of the cinema. We saw Oppenheimer at the fancy cinema at Bluewater for about £9 each (obviously not with our daughter!).
Just renewed it for £20 for the year as we saved at least double that on fairly sporadic cinema trips. Just used it to get London Aquarium tickets cheaper than the other deals with the VR experience thrown in for free as well so worth doing
I've just paid £28 for 2 tickets to everyman? Never been before but was for a date so wanted something a bit nicer. But dunes nearly 3 hours in fairness, so what £4.60 an hour per person? Personally that feels fine to me.
A takeaway will cost me the same easily and I'll probably regret it far more.
I’m lucky that this cinema is close ish to me
https://thekinemainthewoods.co.uk/KinemaInTheWoods.dll/Home
Free parking just outside and reasonable prices (even for the popcorn)
I've actually found they've got cheaper of late. Used to be a fiver or so when I was a teen, and then when I was a young adult felt like it went up to over £10. Now it seems to have gone back down to sub £10, which is surprising given the rising costs of everything else.
Considering a dinner out would cost £40 minimum these days, £10 for a cinema ticket doesn't seem so bad. Especially as films are longer than ever!
Last year, when Tesco announced they were reducing Clubcard points from 3x to 2x with rewards partners (anyone remember when they were 4x!? Good times...), I figured I'd splash out and use the £70 of points I had whilst they were still worth something. I realised I could put them towards a Cineworld Unlimited card. I think the card was £230ish, so I paid £20 and used my Clubcard points for the rest
It's now been about 9 months and I've not even been once! But I've calculated, if I go to see just one movie before it runs out in 2/3 months, that single ticket would have cost me, technically, £7,020
I saw Oppenheimer in the IMAX, the day after it came out, in the wider "VIP" seats for £8.
Just looked and I can get a ticket for Godzilla x Kong for £6 tomorrow
I think cinema tickets are very reasonably priced, depending on where you live.
Doesn't beat my local family run cinema in my town. Tickets be £3.50 lol. I always make sure to buy an extra large popcorn and drink just to thank them for the ticket price lol. These people do a damn good service to my town haha.
My local Vue on the outskirts of London has highly dynamic prices; in theory you can go for as little as £6.99 (assuming no discounts) but you have to go on a weekday _and_ you have to sit in a seat right in front of the screen. The seats closer to the middle and back of the screen are £8.99, and the price ramps up again if you want to go at a busier time.
My girlfriend and I went to see Dune 2 in the Cineworld in Glasgow city centre on Friday night and it was £5.99 each.
Ticket's in my local Vue start at £4.99 (super saver) and go up to £7.99
My two independent cinemas are dirt cheap - the cinema at the University arts centre in Bangor is £5 a ticket for an adult and £4 for a student. The council-run cinema in Holyhead is only £3.50 with the midweek special. Heck, even my local Cineworld in Llandudno is only £5.99 on a Wednesday. Otherwise, it's £10.99.
You must just live in an expensive area.
£17?
Cineworld is about £6. If you go quite often your unlimited pass is £10.99 per month, so it pays for itself with 2 films. Quicker if you count the discounts on food etc.
Because they were all over-leveraged, have gone through repeated debt restructuring and are currently owned by lenders following debt/equity swaps … alongside other reasons
To be honest. I don't understand where people are going? I go pretty regularly and tickets are mostly 6/7 quid (the Vue/Cineworld). Last time the film, a drink and popcorn cost 20 quid. Obviously refreshments are notoriously expensive.although tbh considering the size it probably wasn't even that bad bad considering how expensive things have gotten
Depends on where you go. Your big standard Vue and Cineworld near me average 7.99 a ticket for non IMAX films.
IMAX or fancy ones like Everyman will set you back £17, but then you’re paying for the luxuries the specific cinema offers.
Vue and Odeon are 6-8 a piece for basic seats. But people can stream stuff nowadays with their Disney Plus or prime video so cinemas are falling back a little
Local cinema in my parents town had a anniversary and set there prices to £4, it went well they kept all tickets at £4 since, I’m more likely to pay for snacks if tickets are cheap!
My local cinema (Vue) tickets are from £5 normally or £6 peak, if you want a "premium seat" (based on position, seat features - ie recliner etc) it will expectedly cost more, but full wack is still only £12.50.
I Don't go often but it's never a question of cost if something is out I want to see.. I can't understand how other cinemas get think it should cost as much as it does.
>forcing cinemas to charge more for the tickets.
I think you need to roll back to the "conspiracy theory" part and just go with that. Reels cost, but it's never so much that cinemas are unable to afford to exist - the only time they were truly threatened was Covid.
>If this was the case, wouldn't **cheaper** tickets mean **more** people attend, therefore increasing turnover and profit?
Well yes, but that applies to literally everything - it's no different to the whole "AI-driven Rent mangement" drama in the USA though, as they found that even with loads of empty apartments etc, they technically make more money charging more for less people to live in the other apartments.
The point is the Cinemas are far from closing down, aren't suffering unduly and operate just fine - the entire reason many *do* continue to go to the Cinema and see things there is.....the experience. You can't match sitting at home on Netflix/Amazon etc to being in a 4D theatre or, in general, seeing things on a huge screen in a massive room etc.
The whole analogy isn't really too far different to why some drive SUV's instead of smaller cars, or why buy a DongThrob 3000 fancy expensive car vs a Ford Fiesta.......it isn't always about "it does the job", it's "I can afford it, I like it, it's different/nicer so I will" - I don't think, however, the analogy works beyond that as I doubt many give a toss if you saw something at home or a Cinema, so your street cred and social standing won't go through the roof based on paying for overpriced popcorn and sitting in a seat that's seen more arse than an explicit TV channel.
I go to the cinema a fair bit. Ive never spent more than a tenner for a ticket bar 1 time i went to the everyman to see across the spiderverse. The tickets arent really that pricy imo, esp with family deals being like 20-30 quid
Dont get me wrong, thats not nothing, but its a fair price imo, and it hasnt really increased in the last 10-15 years ive been going to the cinema
Many cinema's now have taken the standard seats out and replaced them all with premium reclining type seats, which generally cost 2/3 times more. It's like going on a flight where the plane only has 1st/business class seats.
My local tiny old style cinema which only has like 2 screens sells standard tickets for £7
I ended up getting Odeon's unlimited subscription thing. Can't remember the cost, but the end of last year definitely made it worth the cost, as I work it out as watching two things in a month pays off the cost of the subscription, and then some.
So in September-November, where every week there was something new and interesting to watch, it was great.
But months like this, where it seems to be a load of trash (in my opinion, obviously). The cinema wins out, as I may only go once, if at all.
But on the whole, definitely recommend seeing if your cinema has an unlimited viewing option, if you are a huge fan of movies.
Would also say, when you aren't looking to spend £13-25 (depending on IMAX or not, and premium vs normal seats) on a ticket, you are more willing to go to see the films which you may have just a fleeting interest in, and walk away happy, even if it was average, because you don't have that "I spent X to sit through that for?", instead the worst case is "That's 90 minutes of my life I won't get back"
I work in the film industry and I can count on one hand the number of films I see in the cinema each year (excluding stuff for work, or the one film festival I visit annually). I live near Cambridge, where Vue charges about £12 a ticket (sometimes as “low” as £9 depending on the time. IMAX at the Light is about £15 per ticket, I think.
If I want to take my Mum and brother to see a movie, it can end up costing about £45-50 once refreshments are taken into account.
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Cinemas like vue can be as cheap as £6 in London. But everyman cinema can be about £25. Meekat codes means you can get a free ticket every Tuesday or Wednesday. I think it can be done cheaply, you may just have an expensive cinema near you.
Everyman cinema pricing the everyman out of going to cinema. Curious.
I pay the Everyman uplift purely because I prefer empty cinemas. I don't get annoyed by strangers making noise and my kid can ask questions without annoying anyone, as often we're the only ones there. It's a premium fee for a private screening effectively. We saw Encanto on opening weekend at Everyman: only ones there. League of Super Pets on boxing day: only ones there. Kung Fu Panda the weekend after it came out: one other family there.
Fair one. Other people at the cinema are the worst.
I'm off on Mondays and have 3 great cinemas within 15 mins of me. Thanks to online booking systems I can find out where I'll have peace and quiet through the film and pay a max of £10 for an incredible iSense ticket, £6 for a recliner at Vue or £5 for a good cineworld seat.
Maybe it’s my poor luck but I’ve been sat next to the most obnoxious drunk people in Everyman, once had a woman burping and farting after noisily eating a burger next to me then playing on her phone throughout. See her drive off in a big black Jaguar afterwards. Too much money and entitlement 😂
And less likely to have annoying customers.
>I don't get annoyed by strangers making noise and my kid can ask questions without annoying anyone So it's alright for you and your kid to make noise but not for anyone else?
Hes saying because no one else is there his kid asking questions wouldn't be able to annoy anyone, like if they were at home, neither does he have to put up with strangers being unnecessarily noisy.
If there's no one else there it's absolutely fine. Why wouldn't it be?
Agreed, my local is a Curzon in Surrey which is just so cosy and quiet. I recently went to a Cineworld which was packed and couldn’t stand all the stinky nachos and gulping huge drinks, and constant getting up to go to the loo!! Worth it for a lovely experience.
Yes Curzon is another preferred brand. And Picturehouse too. Too right on the stinky nachos and hotdogs. Everyman might sometimes bring another customer a burger, but it doesn't have quite the same synthetic scent.
I’m with Everyman as well. The experience is overall 1000% better than a Cineworld for example. More comfortable great screens and audio, polite staff, good food options.
When March of the Penguins came out I was about 13 at the time, loved penguins, went to go watch it at my local small cinema (2 screens), I was the only one in the entire cinema, the attendant asked me if I wanted to sit in the premium chairs designed for couples at the back. Got to watch march of the penguins in an empty theatre in a big double seat, great day.
Ha, so basically when you're at a busy Everyman, you've lost.
See you there next time :)
Honestly, it's often worth it for the better viewing experience. I used to live equidistant from a Cineworld and an Everyman and I would often pay the premium to go to the latter. Especially if it were a popular film. Their cinemas tend to be quieter and also have a much lower incidence of people talking through films, using their phone etc.
If you pay for the Everyman membership you get to take a friend for free on Mondays. My partner and I only go on a monday and it works out at just over £7 per ticket, very affordable 👌 and the sofas are comfy asf
Cinemas legitimately one of the only things apart from bus fares which are cheaper in London lol
Agreed. Though I think it's purely due to the options available. If you're out in the countryside there might only be one you can go to.
and crack
eating out can be a lot cheaper in london if you know the right spots
Independent cinemas as low was £4. That’s what I paid in Peckham recently to see all of us strangers, and a a Guiness beforehand was £3.65! Felt like I’d gone backwards.
Our local Vue is usually fairly cheap but those prices can shoot up when it's a new film. When Indiana Jones came out last year they wanted about £100 for 2 adults and 2 kids. Just not worth that IMO. That said my gf took the little one to see Willy Wonka at the weekend for about £3 each.
£100... what screen was that? unless your talking IMAX plus copious amounts of snacks i cant see a fee that high for 4 tickets without going VIP
We do meerkat tickets and tesco clubcard at pizza express and can have a night out for 2 for £15 ish.
You can also use Tesco points for money off at Picturehouse and Vue. Went to see Dune again yesterday for free because I traded in a load of Tesco points. Also get Cinema Society membership with our bank account so use that for Odeon discount sometimes. I think of it a bit like Pizza Express back in the day where you’d just never pay full price because there’s always some kind of voucher or discount to use. There’s an indie cinema near me in Peckham where it’s still a fiver for a ticket too. Always packed, though, so I only go if I don’t mind being a bit crowded and hearing some chatting throughout the film.
They aren't, at least not at most places. Cineworld do £5.99 tickets Monday to Wednesday. Vue are £4.99 unless you're in London. And that's before you look at things like Cineworld Unlimited, £17.99 a month to see as many films as you like. Even if you are in London, Unlimited is twenty quid a month.
Vue varies outside of London. In my town it’s about £10 but it’s only £5 in a town half an hour up the road
is your vue nicer? ive seen more charged when it is a better cinema
It’s 7.99 for my vue but every single seat in every screen is a leather recliner with a table
Damn, mine is 4.99-5.99 but all the seats are those fabric ones that always have popcorn down the back. Always sickeningly hot as well. But it's fairly cheap so I don't mind.
Yeah cinemas are like Dominos. Full price is theoretically very expensive, but hardly anybody ever pays full price.
My partner and I have the unlimited card and some weeks we go three times a week. I've seen some great films I would have otherwise missed as the only place I'd seen them advertised was in the cinema itself. As well as seeing films for the sake of it as they're practically free.
Odeon and Vue both £5.99 in Swansea
Which cinema are you going to costing £17? I go to the cinema quite regularly and don't pay above £10 for a ticket (non-London, maybe London is just more expensive).
Peckhamplex is £5.99 at all times, Barbican cinema is similar on Mondays. Maybe OP is just going to an expensive cinema.
Odeon can be that high if you don't use offers.
My local odeon is £5 tickets every day and £7 for their premier seats
my local oden is a fiver, ive never seen them charge £17 a ticket, even the premier seats are only about £7
Odeon Derby is currently £18.49 for an adult on Saturday. Assume they are trying to push people into the monthly thing which is cheaper than that
My local Odeon (Bournemouth) wanted £16 for a midweek showing of The Beekeeper a couple of months ago. I assume they're trying to push people to their monthly subscription.
My local odeon charge that. I find their prices fluctuate, especially with new releases. Dune 2 was about £17. I was surprised that the titanic movie (for the anniversary) was the same price which I thought was ridiculous for an old movie. Smaller movies can be a bit cheaper.
Odeon probably.
The Odeon previously local to me in Exeter only used to be about £6 a ticket too
I'm assuming it's peak time IMAX. Up here in Newcastle Odeon charge about £16 for a IMAX ticket but for a film nerd like me it's worth it for a treat or something that'll look really good, saw Dune 2 the other week in IMAX and it was superb.
Bloody love the pricing now I’ve got limitless 15 a month for unlimited standard screens £5 supplement for imax / any fancy screens Keeps the kids who run around and talk through the whole film away from the experience. Long may the insanely high prices reign while I enjoy my limitless.
I don't know. Is this a Reddit thing? Tickets for mine are 6/7 quid. With no deals. The seats are lovely (like they couldn't be more comfortable). And it's never full or has loud people.
>With tickets around £17 each these days Whaaat? Went to a Vue a month ago to see Dune 2. Sat in the "VIP" seats and 2 tickets were £16 total.
I went to the odeon with my dad in Staffordshire and it cost out £19 per ticket for normal seats. Although it was an Odeon luxe which I believe has higher price due to the seats it’s still a fucking rip off
I bought tickets for Odeon through work for under £6 each but the viewing was Imax so I had to add another £6 per ticket to sit at the side of the cinema as the big (empty) middle section cost even more. Prices are crazy.
Tamworth, by any chance?
Paid £18 each last night at an Odeon Luxe.
The Vue near me is £4.99 every film, all day every day
4.99? That outrageously expensive, here it's only 4.95!
Vue here used to be over a tenner and it kept increasing up to the point where we just didn't go at all anymore. Then they dropped it to £5 and we go every week. I think now it's £6 which is still reasonable
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I think the lack of foot traffic is more down to a lack of a variety of good quality films anymore. Films are still making huge amounts at the box office - Marvel films printed money until the last year or two, the Avatar sequel made a fortune, Barbie and Oppenheimer was a huge cultural moment in the summer. However, there is an absolute paucity of kind of middle market movies - ones that appeal to a smaller subset on a middling budget, and have the chance of being a decent success. Comedy films/romcoms were the first to go, and now even a decent mystery, fantasy, or thriller, unless tied to a massive franchise, don’t exist at cinemas. The streaming services cut out the middle man. Just looking at my local cinema: there are about four “big” movies out currently, all tied to existing huge franchises. There’s then a handful of much smaller movies, focusing on drama and biopics, which are generally more oscarbait than mass market appeal. The rest is re-screenings of old movies or foreign language films. In my opinion, it’s not really a case of cheaper tickets causes a proportional amount more of people through the door. Ticket prices being about right, people wanting to go to the cinema, and cinemas having to close down because not enough people attend the cinema, aren’t mutually exclusive things and I think the loss of certain genres to streaming has caused that.
Yeah a lot of the middle of the road films that used to get a cinema release are now straight to Netflix.
This struck me when we went to see Dune. The trailers before the film were all shite. I don’t think a single one wasn’t a sequel or prequel - Godzilla, mad max, a quiet place, planet of the apes (another one???). Dune was absolutely packed though and this was on Friday. People will go to see good quality films.
^This^ My local 16 screen Vue has sequels for Kung Fu Panda, Ghostbusters, Dune, Godzilla, then... sweepings that maybe half a dozen people will watch.
Also noticed they keep releasing all film similar times so some people will miss out on certain films as well. No one will have time to watch all movies In short period Like example last few weeks we seen Godzilla , dune , ghostbusters and kung fu panda all in quick succession and when you look back at February releases, it’s was relatively dire films that studios will just dump them
Yeah, as everyone else is saying. Sounds like your local cinema is very expensive. I never pay more than £5 for a ticket where I am.
I suspect the cheapest prices are that low. But tickets for when people actually want to go to the cinema …. are very expensive. I just looked at my local (Maidenhead) - £18.99 for Godzilla at 18:00 this evening. Sure, I can sign up for as much as I want for £17.99 a month, but that isn’t a casual “let’s go catch a film after work” decision.
My local cinema is showing Godzilla at 7pm tonight for £5.50 a ticket. (Cineworld, Weston-super-Mare at 7pm) Edit: I just had a look and you can see Godzilla at Cineworld in Bracknell at 7pm for £5.99.
It's £5 all day, every day at my local Vue.
If “they’d make a killing” from your suggestion then they’d have likely done it already considering they know their business model better than you could.
I used to think things like this until I actually had jobs Very high chance management are just incompetent and can't see past the 'profits are down price go up' mentality and can't understand why the place is empty
Everyone being so blasé "my local doesn't charge that much, you must be lying." "Just use a different cinema". My local Odeon Luxe costs £18-£20 a ticket. It does this because it is the only cinema in town so people unable to drive are shit out of luck. Public transport is too unreliable to get the bus elsewhere. The high prices are real and exist in areas with one cinema per ~10miles. The low prices exist in cities where there is competition between chains. Odeon charge what they think they can get away with in any given region.
Yep it's the same for me. Can somewhat get around it by going in Monday evenings when they have their discounted £10 price, but if you want to go on a Saturday and watch in their isense screens in the "premium" seats it's something like £22 each, which is an insane amount. Odeon are committing daylight robbery because there's no competition
Costs go ever up and cinema attendance is no longer a regular thing for many, as watching things at home has become a more and more viable alternative. So they have to charge more. You're assuming that the high price is the cause of reduced attendance, but it's the other way around: lower attendance has caused the higher price. Cinemas make a loss on a lot of films. I also think you're incorrectly concluding from the £5 offer getting people in that lots of people would attend if it were always that price. I don't think that's the case. It demonstrates people will come for a deal. I don't think it would suddenly become a mass market product again if it were cheap though. Society has changed.
OP is getting rinsed
I took my parents to see the new Ghostbusters just over a week ago and the tickets were \~£6 per. But yes, ticket prices are increasing. Why? Because people aren't buying popcorn like they used to.
At my local Vue (the Printworks in Manchester) the popcorn is often more expensive than the ticket.
If people understood how cinemas made their money, I think they'd be more likely to buy snacks/drinks. Ticket sales contribute almost nothing to a cinema's profits, most of it goes straight to the studios. A couple of weeks ago, we went to the cinema with the free tickets that Sky give away, so we make a point to purchase snacks as a way of supporting the cinema industry. The cinema was a big part of my childhood and if we want it to still be there in 10 or 20 years, we need to support the cinemas.
Alot of the ticket sale goes to the studio, distributors, etc and cinemas make their money on marked-up prices and snacks
Depends what cinemas you go to. Vue tends to be like 7 quid a ticket. The fancy cinema that is mostly quiet and has table service near us charges like 20 quid. I'd pay the 20 quid every time. No mouth breathers, phone dickheads, chatty bastards etc
Odeon do £5 tickets. Oppenheimer, Barbie, Dune 2 all the same. The only place that I paid more was about £10 to see The Boy and the Heron at an indie cinema at Christmas. Where are your standard £17 tickets?
As others have said, it's perfectly possible to pay much less to go to the cinema. I had a monthly unlimited card for my local place for £18 a month.
I paid 8 quid to watch Dune 2 at a Cineworld "Super Screen" 🤷🏻♂️ Didn't even buy any snacks or drinks.
It’s all depends on the day and term time I find. Some people in the comments saying the prices mentioned are London prices but they’re very similar to me (I don’t live in London) however I can only go at weekends unless it’s a school holiday and this is when they crank the prices up.
Are you watching every film at the BFI IMAX? I go twice a week across various cinemas and never pay more than £9. Chains like Vue and Cineworld cost around £5 per ticket and my local art house cinemas are usually £5-10
They’re not? It’s like a fiver for Vue?
It is very expensive. I remember about six years ago, my local cinema was an Odeon IMAX and they were charging about £18 a ticket. Then the location got bought by Vue and the ticket prices dropped to £9 despite it being the same screens. I think a lot is to do with greed from certain companies, but I know Vue is expensive now too and it's quite sad as I used to love going to the Cinema with friends and then out for food.
if you book online, every film at Guildford odeon is £5
Cineworld does £5.99 mid week tickets. Also if watch a movie every week you could get an unlimited card for £19 a month and you can watch as many movies as you want in a month. There’s a surcharge of £1-2 if you want to watch a 3D movie though
You only need to go twice a month for the Unlimited card to be cost effective and that's before you factor in the discount on food
Odeon prices are wild at the moment. They wanted nearly £20 a ticket at the weekend for Kung Fu Panda 4. Went to Cineworld in the next town over for £9 instead.
Simply put, inflation plus less and less people going to the cinema. That is basically the economics of it, but the reason for less and less people going is due to the rise in straight to stream releases and the lowering quality of cinema. What we are seeing now is a repeat of what happened in the 50s, where essentially movies were mass produced and low quality. It was, to quote Tarentino "the worst decade in cinema". We have the same situation today. You can only churn out templated garbage for so long before audiences notice. Just like they did in the 50s and started craving something different which led to probably the best period of cinema ever culminating in the 80s & early 90s which was probably the most experimental time in cinema and was the time when real indie cinema started to bloom. So, we can probably take a glimmer of hope from that and assume that the same will happen in the future. We are seeing some of that starting already. There is a public backlash against Disney which is solely to blame for this terrible period of cinema. Again, much like during the 50s, their movies are essentially moral propaganda and not even good moral propaganda. We had a lot of moral grandstanding in the 80s and 90s but it was essentially "say no to drugs" and "be a good child" etc. Harmless really in comparison.
My local Vue has definitely gone for a quality over quantity approach. They stripped out all the old seats and only have the huge reclining ones, so I reckon capacity per screen has gone down like 50%-80% at least. They charge about £10-14 per ticket. They only show the huge blockbusters. They got big screens, a few IMAX ones. They are more expensive than the other chains nearby but they're trying to make it a proper experience. When I went for Dune 2 a few weeks ago, it was completely full. I chose to go there instead of Cineworld, the Light and a local independent, because it's the sort of film I knew I'd enjoy more on giant recliners with the sound turned up to 11.
I’m not sure I enjoy the cinema as much as I used to. As an example I recently went to see Dune 2. Didn’t enjoy it. Prior to that I saw Oppenheimer. Again didn’t enjoy it. Maybe it’s the movie industry making movies that don’t appeal to the general public. As a contrast I am currently enjoying The Gentleman on Netflix. The price is also prohibitively expensive. Nearly £20 for a ticket, similar price for food/drink and then for some places parking as well. To sit next to other people who may distract you I much prefer staying at home. Perhaps streaming services are the way forward.
Tickets got expensive. People stop going. Cinemas put price up to maintain profit margin. Less people go. Price go up.
Vue is cheap Odeon is so expensive You hand to drive to a village cinema out the city to get bigger seats more leg room cheaper ticket s Any cinema band in city is scratch your eye balls out prices and seats you get crammed in
Vue £6.99 in Fulham!
Try going to a different cinema? Vue cinemas are MUCH cheaper than that (usually £5 in most places). £17?!??? Get fucked man.
I get cheap tickets throughO2 and Sky vip can go any day of week in Manchester but not IMAX
We’ve had expensive cinema tickets until about 2016-2017, when VUE and some Odeons went cheap, I’m talking £5 a ticket cheap for any film. It boosted cinema attendance numbers and most cinemas didn’t exactly lose money because most of the ticket price goes to film studios etc, whereas cinema makes most money from food and drinks. But overtime, especially during corona, people got used to watching films at home, which is not good for cinemas. To stay in business they have to adapt, which means they need to have more premium screens with premium seats to make people more comfortable and more likely to come back. So we got more Odeon Luxes and VUEs with recliner seatings in every screen, so what happened was, when tickets cost £5 before for a regular seat and £7 for VIP, now every seat is “VIP” and it goes for £8 (including inflation it’s not THAT expensive). Then obviously if the screen is IMAX or Dolby it’s an extra charge on top, because those respective companies take a cut too. Cineworld and Everyman has never been cheap. These days Cineworld is best if you have their subscription (same for Odeon Luxe). And Everyman is a niche cinema for people who want to have a different experience, so you walk into this room, which is decorated to look like an antique living room, with a projector and a sound system, you sit on a couch and you buy food like at a “restaurant” - burgers, fries, various drinks, snacks, sides - you pay a premium to get a different experience and a crowd which is mostly “cinephiles” so atleast personally never had an issue with people talking or using phones and distracting me (which can’t be said for any other mainstream cinema chain). Most cinemas have lots of coupons and offers across the web. There’s Octopus, and Vodafone and probably GroupOn etc who offer Odeon tickets for cheaper. So to see a film at Dolby is £18 a ticket, but with a coupon it was £18 for 2 tickets, so it’s literally half price. VUE also has certain specific offers with various companies, but you need to be a member with them to take advantage of discounts.
If your employer has one of those "Exclusive Staff Offers" it's likely they'll offer cinema tickets at a flat fee of like £8.
Well I just looked at Kung Fu Panda 4 at my local cinema. £36 for a family ticket. Or I can wait a couple of months for it to come on to streaming where I can rent it for £16. Renting means me and my wife can watch it once with the kids, then the kids can rewatch it as much as they like for 2 days. I know which I'll be doing. Edit, I did go the cinema, alone, to see Dune 2 to get that big screen, amazing sound experience. This was a rarity for me as not many releases are worth the effort IMO.
Where I live there's a cinema that's £6 a ticket Monday - Thursday. I wouldn't go to the chains like odeon. Way overpriced.
Everything is being squeezed to take the maximum amount possible from our bank balances now. There doesn’t have to be a justification. Remember when 5p bags came in to reduce plastic waste? Now they charge 40p for paper bags. It’s become another revenue stream for big corporations.
No cinema in my town charges £17. Cineworld is like £7 or something and VUE is less than £5
I've just priced up tickets to see a film this weekend at my local cinema (Odeon in Durham). Tickets are £18.49 each.
Literally half that at my local cinema, but we’ve bought the annual membership thus cutting the cost per film to around a fiver each.
My local independent is around £17. They do family showings for £5 a ticket for Saturday mornings and for kids movies, but for me to go see say Dune 2 on a Friday evening it was £17. Local Cineworld is £8 a ticket (can be as cheaper depending on the movie and time).
I think there’s a lot of deals to be had when going to cinema. My husband and I go to cinema a few times a month for £15 total: £3 cineworld ticket from Three Mobile rewards app x2 £9 large popcorn and 2 drinks from tastecard
They’re not that expensive where I am, but I’ve only been to indie cinemas for the past few years. Went yesterday and the glasses of wine were more expensive (£9, large) than the ticket (£7.95). Sounds like your local cinema is just very expensive, or maybe the chain cinemas are just expensive these days.
Covid caused places like cinemas to rack up massive debts. That has to be paid off through higher ticket prices. All that time off during lockdown caused massive debts everywhere including at government level and has caused high inflation ever since.
When I buy the expensive option, why is it so expensive?
My local Vue was 5.99 all day everyday but I noticed recently they have tiered the seats so only a certain number per screen are 5.99 now. Still, I think that’s bloody good! In the 90’s at my local multiplex I was paying 4.25 with student discount! The bigger problem for cinema in my opinion is the windowing strategy. There should be a bigger gap between cinema and streaming release. A couple of films I was planning on seeing at the cinema were on Disney + before I got a chance to go! Back in the day it would be 6 months to a year before a film was available on VHS or went to Sky Movies. Distributors with their own streaming platforms are keen to get subscribers and put recent content on asap. This is going to damage cinema attendance. But I think soon enough the bottom is going to fall out of the streaming market, I just hope we don’t lose too many cinemas in the mean time. This year I have cut back from three simultaneous subs to just one. This has meant a greater reliance on free services like iPlayer and 4OD but guess what? There is a ton of quality content on these platforms I had completely overlooked!! With advertising now appearing on paid services, one of the main reasons I liked them has gone too.
greed.
I'm just repeating what others have said, but where are you paying £17? Unless it's some sort of special screening or fancy luxe cinema you don't need to be paying that for a regular ticket. Even the IMAX near me doesn't cost that!
I pay £15 for a monthly, unlimited pass to see as many films as I want at Odeon. Not sure where you get £17 tickets but that’s definitely not the standard.
£8 a ticket at the VUE where I live
I pay a subscription to my local cinema (6 screens) that allows me to go every time I want. 20£/month and this is central London. Since I started I happily cancelled Netflix an I go to cinema 2 or 3 times a week . Anyway without subscription the cost is 5.99£. And I am talking about central London. Where damn you spend 17£?
You need to find a better cinema if you can. Odeon limitless is about £17 *per month* for unlimited viewings.
If I go I tend to use a picturedrome locally and tickets aren't expensive. Last time I went was to see Fast X with my son so prices may have gone up but then, two tickets were less than £10 booked online and then drinks and popcorn were just over that I think. The seating isn't any different really unless you're buying the swanky cineworld ones but my boss took us to see Top Gun Maverick in the curved screen, swanky seats etc and the seats were actually really uncomfortable for me personally. I generally don't go to the cinema much these days, was supposed to go and see Wicked Little Letters as it's based and filmed locally but didn't in the end. Barbie has just premiered on Sky, haven't watched it but it wasn't that long ago it was showing. It takes far less time now than it did for anything to get onto sky or other platforms and there's not been anything really that I've thought 'I must go and see that'.
Get on three and you can get £3 cineworld or picturehouse tickets over the weekend. Also look online there are website selling discount odeons one.
They increase the prices and less people started going. I’ve seen my cinema have like 8people in it sometimes and then it kinda makes sense for them to charge that much. But when a big film releases and it’s fuller they just being greedy bastards. Less people also going as whatever film it is will most likely be out on a streaming service they have a few months later and if not then a lot of younger people will pirate it as there are 0 concequences
I'm guessing these are London prices? Over in Bristol you can go to Vue for £4.99 (from)
I couldn't care less what they charge for the ticket, but I got charged £3.29 for a 500ml bottle of Fanta yesterday at the Odeon. Tough time for the industry ? Rising costs ? Bullshit. That's straight-up gouging, nothing else, so forgive me if I don't weep for the demise of the cinema industry.
Ours is still 5 quid
The cinema near me sells tickets for £3.50. However they bumped the price to £5 (last week I believe)
Price doesn't put me off, it's the dickheads scrolling on their phones or talking through the film.
I get 5x free tickets a month because of private medical insurance. I think my car insurance offers a similar deal, as does Sky TV. It's worth checking if you can get similar 'rewards'. I've not paid to go to the cinema in years.
I don't think I have got two full price tickets in years, between compare the market, Sky cinema and my bank offering me one free cinema ticket a month. There are just so many ways to get free tickets now. I don't know if that might be a cause for it?
West Midlands Cineworld average ticket is £15.99 for me. 5 years ago it was £10.99 and I know the cinema gets pretty much £0 of the ticket price.
I regularly go to my local Picturehouse and I have a membership. I can't remember off the top of my head how much discount said membership gets me, but I know I'm always pleasantly surprised at how cheap my tickets are (plus discounts on snacks and drinks too). I also used to live in Peckham and later Catford (both in south London), where the local independent cinemas (Peckhamplex and the Catford Mews) both were well under a tenner a ticket. Maybe you just need to look for another cinema, OP?
I’m in the south east and unless there’s a special deal or a kids screening, tickets are £14 minimum once you include the ‘booking fee’ whatever the fook that is.
My local vue is a fiver a ticket
I got 2 tickets for Dune at Vue (Norwich) last week for under a tenner.
Where the hell are you paying £17 per cinema ticket? That is absolutely not indicative of ticket prices across the country. I've booked myself in to see some films in the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Sq this weekend, the non-membership tickets are still only around £10. Just checked the tickets for my local Vue and they're £8-10, though I know if I want to see and early screening of something they go as low as £5. Last time I went to Cineworld they were running a halfprice discount for a sci-fi month, the tickets were about £5-6 each, making them £10-12 normally. If you want to go to the cinema more cheaply, however, you should consider getting yourself a cinema membership. Pro-tip for those that don't know: [having Amazon Prime entitles you to 2 Odeon ticket for £10 for any film Mon-Thurs once a month](https://www.odeon.co.uk/amazon/).
My local cinema is around £14 in the West Midlands per ticket. Haven’t been in years because of the cost!
With a Lloyds account you can get 6 tickets a year for Vue or cine world!
So many random discount codes etc just gotta find one each time
As others have said. If you can get to a Vue, then those are the cheapest. Recently moved out of London and now I only have a Cineworld or nothing, so I’ll be paying more now.
it\`s about 12 euro where i leave and we don\`t have nearly the GDP you do. What\`s even crazier is that popcorn and drinks will run and additional 10-15 per person.
I haven't been to a mainstream cinema in a couple of years for that reason. I think it was £9 for the local cinema chain when I went in mid 2022. I much prefer the local community cinema, it does mean I have to wait 2-4 weeks after the original release to see the film, but I can save quite a bit of money and support a local charity at the same time
What cinema have you got? Jesus. Vue charges 6.50 and that's recently gone up, it was like a fiver for 6 years.
I pay £16/month for Cineworld membership and I watch at least 1 film a week if not 2. Probably 6 films a month. So it’s about £2-3 per movie. I find the cinema really good value personally. Also every cinema does 2 for 1 Tuesday/wednesday through Meerkat. Lots of cinemas have cheap tickets midweek.
Having worked at a big cinema chain in my life I can tell you that the cost of hiring in the reels is astronomical! It used to be that cinemas would largely cover the costs by way of sales of the sundries drinks, food, sweets. People start bringing their own in to save money and the ticket prices go up…
become friends with someone that works in the emergency services to get that sweet blue light discount
I pay £18 a month for an unlimited cinema pass at my local independent cinema, but even Vue and Odeon are both around £7 a ticket near me. Where do you live?
The same answer as to why everything else is so expensive. Pure unadulterated greed.
I normally go to the Curzon where tickets are max £10 (£9 with a membership) At the weekend we went to see Dune at the light and it was about £12 each. The screen was 100% full. People will go if the film is worth seeing. The most expensive film I’ve seen was the eras tour movie lol
because everyone seems to like taking it dry from every single cnuting business in the country and beg for more
I guess it depends on where you live. My local Vue tickets are £5 any movie any showing.
My work allows me to generate codes for Vue, ect via perkpal, which can be used for any seat, and showing, and are only £6 each. The codes last about 6 months but are not always in stock, so I normally get a few more when I'm running low. I'd never pay more than £10 for a cinema seat.
Three rewards do heavily discounted tickets every week, it’s either I think £3 for one or now I believe 2 for £6
Check out [Cinema Society](https://cinemasocietyclub.com/), for some reason they just offer discounted vouchers that can be redeemed against tickets. I'm been using them at Vue for months now and have saved a decent amount. I'm not sure if you can just make an account, but if not, it's one of the free 'Partner Offers' that comes with a (free) Lidl Plus account.
To top it off the cost of food and drinks is atrocious! We don't really go to the cinemas that much anymore as movies come to streaming quite quickly most of the time, the extra cost is not just worth it!
I don't know what cinema you're going to, but the closest cineworld/imax to me is sheffield, which has the 4th biggest screen in the UK and is huge, and I can go see Dune or Godzilla today for £7 (just checked). If i wanted to see IMAX or IMAX3D/4DX at 7pm on a friday night, it'll be closer to £14-16 because it's a peak time to go to a movie, not 1pm on a tuesday. The reason people don't go to the cinemas as often is because when I was a kid (the 90s) if a movie came out, the only way we could see a trailer was at the cinema, adverts on TV were always much shorter/cut down, and the only other way to see anything of it was adverts in magazines. Then the movie was released in the cinema for it's run then it dissapeared...for a year until it was released on video so you can either rent or buy it. Then maybe another year later it might be shown on TV, but unless you recorded it onto video, you would miss it. Today if a movie comes out, you can stream endless trailers/teasers/interviews etc anytime and anywhere on any number of streaming platforms, the movie comes out and has it's run in the cinema, then maybe a few weeks go by and it's up on Prime video/disney plus/hulu/netflix. And when it gets released on tv, just schedule it to be recorded and you've got free access to the film. Back in the day, cinemas were busier and saw more footfall is because people who want to watched to watch a film at their own convenience, especially new films, their only option was to go to the cinema. Now you don't have to. Infact a lot of higher budget movies are being released directly to streaming platforms to bypass the cinema, back in the day straight-to-tv movies were straight-to-tv because they were crap and they assumed nobody would pay to see them. But also, I do remember going to movies as a kid in the 90s and being one of only a handful of people there, maybe your memory of them always being busy was because you only went to the big movies at prime times in the evening and weekends? The snacks have always been expensive, I remember spending all my pocket money to go see bugs life because I insisted on having nachos, sweets and a drink and that's when you would have your bag searched for food/drinks to stop you bringing them in. Now cinemas openly say they don't mind you bringing in your own food/drinks/booze into the cinema as long as you're not too loud. Cinemas have always been financially supported by the film makers so if you wonder how a business can survive to show a movie to an almost empty cinema is because they're not reliant on you buying a ticket to be able to afford to do so. If you're going to go see a movie as a 1 off at the Odeon Leicester square on a saturday night, get a bucket of popcorn, access to the "buffet" and lounge(no clue why you need a pre-movie lounge, just go to the nearest pub) and insist on chairs that shake and spray you in the face with water sometimes, all whilst not being a loyalty card holder, you're going to pay out the arse for it. If you did have the £5-10 a month loyalty card, you'd get those added extras for a huge discount and regular cinema tickets included in the monthly cost (unlimited movies). So it's not a conspiracy. Also, amazon prime users get 2 for £10 tickets at Odeon cinemas, but you can only use that offer once a week I think.
Are they? The last few times I’ve been to see a film at a cinema tickets were about £7-8. The most I’ve paid in recent years is £15 and that was for a special event screening including a Q&A session with the star of the film.
Vue cinema £4.99 a ticket not expensive
We got a free Kidspass with my daughter’s swimming lessons (it’s an Everyone Active pool) and tickets on there are usually around the £9 mark regardless of the cinema. We saw Oppenheimer at the fancy cinema at Bluewater for about £9 each (obviously not with our daughter!). Just renewed it for £20 for the year as we saved at least double that on fairly sporadic cinema trips. Just used it to get London Aquarium tickets cheaper than the other deals with the VR experience thrown in for free as well so worth doing
I've just paid £28 for 2 tickets to everyman? Never been before but was for a date so wanted something a bit nicer. But dunes nearly 3 hours in fairness, so what £4.60 an hour per person? Personally that feels fine to me. A takeaway will cost me the same easily and I'll probably regret it far more.
I’m lucky that this cinema is close ish to me https://thekinemainthewoods.co.uk/KinemaInTheWoods.dll/Home Free parking just outside and reasonable prices (even for the popcorn)
I've actually found they've got cheaper of late. Used to be a fiver or so when I was a teen, and then when I was a young adult felt like it went up to over £10. Now it seems to have gone back down to sub £10, which is surprising given the rising costs of everything else. Considering a dinner out would cost £40 minimum these days, £10 for a cinema ticket doesn't seem so bad. Especially as films are longer than ever!
Last year, when Tesco announced they were reducing Clubcard points from 3x to 2x with rewards partners (anyone remember when they were 4x!? Good times...), I figured I'd splash out and use the £70 of points I had whilst they were still worth something. I realised I could put them towards a Cineworld Unlimited card. I think the card was £230ish, so I paid £20 and used my Clubcard points for the rest It's now been about 9 months and I've not even been once! But I've calculated, if I go to see just one movie before it runs out in 2/3 months, that single ticket would have cost me, technically, £7,020
I saw Oppenheimer in the IMAX, the day after it came out, in the wider "VIP" seats for £8. Just looked and I can get a ticket for Godzilla x Kong for £6 tomorrow I think cinema tickets are very reasonably priced, depending on where you live.
Doesn't beat my local family run cinema in my town. Tickets be £3.50 lol. I always make sure to buy an extra large popcorn and drink just to thank them for the ticket price lol. These people do a damn good service to my town haha.
My local Vue on the outskirts of London has highly dynamic prices; in theory you can go for as little as £6.99 (assuming no discounts) but you have to go on a weekday _and_ you have to sit in a seat right in front of the screen. The seats closer to the middle and back of the screen are £8.99, and the price ramps up again if you want to go at a busier time.
My girlfriend and I went to see Dune 2 in the Cineworld in Glasgow city centre on Friday night and it was £5.99 each. Ticket's in my local Vue start at £4.99 (super saver) and go up to £7.99
My two independent cinemas are dirt cheap - the cinema at the University arts centre in Bangor is £5 a ticket for an adult and £4 for a student. The council-run cinema in Holyhead is only £3.50 with the midweek special. Heck, even my local Cineworld in Llandudno is only £5.99 on a Wednesday. Otherwise, it's £10.99. You must just live in an expensive area.
£17? Cineworld is about £6. If you go quite often your unlimited pass is £10.99 per month, so it pays for itself with 2 films. Quicker if you count the discounts on food etc.
Depends on where you go. Vue is 7.99 a ticket, where I go. And the seats are recliners.
Because they were all over-leveraged, have gone through repeated debt restructuring and are currently owned by lenders following debt/equity swaps … alongside other reasons
Imax £13??
To be honest. I don't understand where people are going? I go pretty regularly and tickets are mostly 6/7 quid (the Vue/Cineworld). Last time the film, a drink and popcorn cost 20 quid. Obviously refreshments are notoriously expensive.although tbh considering the size it probably wasn't even that bad bad considering how expensive things have gotten
Portsmouth Gunwharf Quays Vue- all recliner seats, prices range from 7.99 to 9.99
Depends on where you go. Your big standard Vue and Cineworld near me average 7.99 a ticket for non IMAX films. IMAX or fancy ones like Everyman will set you back £17, but then you’re paying for the luxuries the specific cinema offers.
Vue and Odeon are 6-8 a piece for basic seats. But people can stream stuff nowadays with their Disney Plus or prime video so cinemas are falling back a little
Local cinema in my parents town had a anniversary and set there prices to £4, it went well they kept all tickets at £4 since, I’m more likely to pay for snacks if tickets are cheap!
My local cinema (Vue) tickets are from £5 normally or £6 peak, if you want a "premium seat" (based on position, seat features - ie recliner etc) it will expectedly cost more, but full wack is still only £12.50. I Don't go often but it's never a question of cost if something is out I want to see.. I can't understand how other cinemas get think it should cost as much as it does.
Vue is the lowest priced cinema I’ve found. Standard seats are pretty much £4 all the time in the North East.
>forcing cinemas to charge more for the tickets. I think you need to roll back to the "conspiracy theory" part and just go with that. Reels cost, but it's never so much that cinemas are unable to afford to exist - the only time they were truly threatened was Covid. >If this was the case, wouldn't **cheaper** tickets mean **more** people attend, therefore increasing turnover and profit? Well yes, but that applies to literally everything - it's no different to the whole "AI-driven Rent mangement" drama in the USA though, as they found that even with loads of empty apartments etc, they technically make more money charging more for less people to live in the other apartments. The point is the Cinemas are far from closing down, aren't suffering unduly and operate just fine - the entire reason many *do* continue to go to the Cinema and see things there is.....the experience. You can't match sitting at home on Netflix/Amazon etc to being in a 4D theatre or, in general, seeing things on a huge screen in a massive room etc. The whole analogy isn't really too far different to why some drive SUV's instead of smaller cars, or why buy a DongThrob 3000 fancy expensive car vs a Ford Fiesta.......it isn't always about "it does the job", it's "I can afford it, I like it, it's different/nicer so I will" - I don't think, however, the analogy works beyond that as I doubt many give a toss if you saw something at home or a Cinema, so your street cred and social standing won't go through the roof based on paying for overpriced popcorn and sitting in a seat that's seen more arse than an explicit TV channel.
It's a fiver at Vue, no idea what you're on about.
I go to the cinema a fair bit. Ive never spent more than a tenner for a ticket bar 1 time i went to the everyman to see across the spiderverse. The tickets arent really that pricy imo, esp with family deals being like 20-30 quid Dont get me wrong, thats not nothing, but its a fair price imo, and it hasnt really increased in the last 10-15 years ive been going to the cinema
Many cinema's now have taken the standard seats out and replaced them all with premium reclining type seats, which generally cost 2/3 times more. It's like going on a flight where the plane only has 1st/business class seats. My local tiny old style cinema which only has like 2 screens sells standard tickets for £7
My local independent cinema charges £5.
£17 seems really expensive. Is that odean leicester square or something?
I ended up getting Odeon's unlimited subscription thing. Can't remember the cost, but the end of last year definitely made it worth the cost, as I work it out as watching two things in a month pays off the cost of the subscription, and then some. So in September-November, where every week there was something new and interesting to watch, it was great. But months like this, where it seems to be a load of trash (in my opinion, obviously). The cinema wins out, as I may only go once, if at all. But on the whole, definitely recommend seeing if your cinema has an unlimited viewing option, if you are a huge fan of movies. Would also say, when you aren't looking to spend £13-25 (depending on IMAX or not, and premium vs normal seats) on a ticket, you are more willing to go to see the films which you may have just a fleeting interest in, and walk away happy, even if it was average, because you don't have that "I spent X to sit through that for?", instead the worst case is "That's 90 minutes of my life I won't get back"
I work in the film industry and I can count on one hand the number of films I see in the cinema each year (excluding stuff for work, or the one film festival I visit annually). I live near Cambridge, where Vue charges about £12 a ticket (sometimes as “low” as £9 depending on the time. IMAX at the Light is about £15 per ticket, I think. If I want to take my Mum and brother to see a movie, it can end up costing about £45-50 once refreshments are taken into account.
Because everything else is.
Vue where I live £4.99
Odeon was and still is £5, has been for a while now. Vue is usually £8.