January 29, 2010 Confectionary killed the cinema goer
Well it’s been some time since I’ve had 10 minutes to have a ramble about anything, so I’m going to get on my soap box about something that is quite close to my heart.
For centuries the cinema was part of the staple diet of anyone who wanted entertaining night or day, I remember the days of having a Saturday afternoon double-bill and going to the packed cinema of a late night (after the pub) screening, but today there is a hidden agenda of the movie theatres that out ways the entertainment factor they are really designed to provide.
We can all understand that every business is there to make a profit, hell you wouldn’t be in business if that wasn’t your goal, but in my mind you have a core product that you sell, with movie theatres they sell a service of delivering a film via projection and sound systems for your entertainment, a secondary service they provide is the confectionary for you to munch on mindlessly during the film you are watching….
Back in the day when films came on multiple reels we used to have an intermission (to change the reels) where a couple of young ladies would position themselves at the base of the walkways and sell ice creams and such like at reasonable prices, as the old style movie theatres became a thing of past with multiplexes being the new way to provide maximum choice to the avid movie goers, we saw a change in the way the confectionary was sold.
Confectionary became the core profit generator for the theatre managers, the cover price on the tickets needed to be so high to cover the operational cost of the place that it would scare the customers away, so the managers added an unbelievable markup on the confectionary… Ok so we can expect to pay a little more as they aren’t negotiating at the same level of a supermarket chain, but the markup the movie theatres are putting on is so ridicules that I am sometimes lost for words.
So what are we talking here? Well not so long ago (well it must of been a while ago as it was before our little one arrived) we popped off to our local Odeon cinema, being that my partner was heavily pregnant and I was driving I strolled upto the counter and asked for two bottles of water…. OMG, the guy stuck two 500ml bottles on the counter and said “that be five pounds please” “sorry” was my reply…..
£5 for a litre of water…. I asked the guy if the water was laced with gold as clearly this was very special water….
I declined my purchase thankfully as I really am not made of money and the water was not even a brand I had heard of, so we wandered to a different counter to buy some sweets and ice cream, £15 later we had 2 bags of sweets and a small tub of ice scream!
Having now paid more for a small amount of indulgence than the actual cost of the entry tickets it made me wonder why cinema goer numbers were steadily declining…..
So a few weeks later off we went shopping and to the cinema again! (a different one this time) having been in the shopping centre we purchased our sweets and drinks from M&S to save ourselves wasting money in the cinema…. As we stopped to have our tickets checked, the young girl asked if we had bought our own confectionary into the cinema and could she check our bags….. Hang on a minute…. We paid a cover price to get in and see a film, not to be searched for buying our own sweets.
Not only do the cinemas now expect you to pay such a high price for confectionary, but they are taking away your right to buy it elsewhere, something I have never seen a sign for in any foyer and it certainly isn’t on the back of the tickets as terms and conditions of purchasing the ticket, so where did this come from and why do cinema bosses think that it’s a good way to get more business in.
My dream has always been to own and run my own cinema, I’ve thought about smaller screen more likened to a nickelodeon where the customer gets a more intermate viewing of the film with a more personal service and honest pricing for confectionary & beverages, but I’ve never taken it any further as I’m really not sure if it would be accepted… People seem to want choice, to want the same old shit when they go, the same mass produced nacho’s that have a 5000% GP (come-on, you get charged £3 for 10 nachos and a thimble sized portion of salsa!) the same mass produced junk food at an over exaggerated price….
But why?
Why is it you stop at a roadside motorway stop and pay £6.99 for a full english that is mass purchased junk food in the smallest portion they can get away with, when you can pay £3.50 in a local town cafe for the same dish just twice the size and better quality product, and why can you feed yourself on that hearty breakfast in one of these local cafes but then pay the guys outside £10 to clean your car????
Where is all the logic in what we are willing to pay?
I think there is a market for an independent small screen cinema run with the customer in mind, and I am sure that somewhere in the world these types of establishments exist, I’d just like to be the one running one in the UK.
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