Recent years have not been easy for the cinema industry. First, the pandemic and the numerous bans associated with it destroyed the cinema audience. Then, Hollywood strikes significantly limited the number of premieres and postponed many of the most anticipated productions.
Despite these perturbations, cinema ticket prices remained almost unchanged. The primary goal was to get people back in front of the big screen and try to return to the record attendance recorded before the pandemic.
However, this state of affairs may soon change. According to information from the website virtualmedia.pl, tickets in Polish cinemas will soon become more expensive.
“Viewers expect better experiences from cinemas, an even higher standard of projection – and this, of course, also requires financial outlays. Therefore, I think that we can expect increases in ticket prices this year, which, I emphasize, have been at a stable level in recent years,” said Mariusz Spisz, president of the management board of Multikino Media.
“Cinema ticket prices in Poland, if we look at the last 10, even 15 years, have actually increased very little. We all know the inflation we have been facing in recent years. It is no secret that cinemas are affected by a significant increase in costs – mainly utilities and labor costs,” he added in an interview with the Spisz portal.
A similar opinion was expressed some time ago by the president of the Helios cinema chain. In an interview with virtualmedia.pl, he admitted that “ticket prices in cinemas have not kept up with the increase in costs and inflation” and that increases this year are very likely because now “there is room for it.”
He meant the growing attendance in Polish cinemas. Last year, numerous screenings attracted 50.1 million viewers.
“Exactly a year ago, during the presentation of the 2023 cinema schedule, we said that we hoped that 50 million viewers would come to cinemas in Poland in 2023. Today we know that this result has been achieved! This is already over 80% of the record result of 2019, when 61 million viewers visited cinemas in Poland. In other European countries, the results are at the level of 65-85% of the pre-pandemic audience, so Poland is within the upper limits,” Spisz revealed in an interview with virtualmedia.pl.
However, the president of the management board of Multikino Media is sure that some viewers have moved from the cinema hall to the TV screen, choosing streaming services that have become increasingly popular in recent years, which is currently the biggest competition for the cinema industry. In his opinion, increasing ticket prices is intended to increase, among other things, the quality of the projection, i.e. provide the audience with experiences that they will not be able to count on in front of a small screen.