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Source: Shenrancaijing
Author | Wan Qi
The 2022 Spring Festival will be officially launched.
According to real-time data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of 01:13 on February 2, the total box office of new films (including pre-sales) in 2022 Spring Festival has exceeded 2 billion. Five of the eight new films have sold more than 100 million yuan at the box office on the first day. "Watergate Bridge of Changjin Lake" (hereinafter referred to as "Watergate Bridge") grossed 668 million yuan on its first day, breaking the cumulative box office record of feature films during the Spring Festival in the past three years. "The Four Seas" and "The Killer Is Not Cool" grossed more than 200 million, while the previously promising "Miracle · Dumb Boy" fell behind to the fourth place, with the box office of less than 200 million on the first day.
At the same time, "skyrocketing" ticket prices have once again become a hot topic.
According to the statistics of Cat's Eye Professional Edition, the national average ticket price will be as high as 58.7 yuan on the first day of the Lunar New Year in 2022, an increase of 45.6% over the annual average ticket price of 40.3 yuan in 2021. According to the records on Taopiao APP, the prime ticket price of a single IMAX 2D hall even reached 179 yuan in cinemas in Beijing, Shanghai and other first tier cities, and the average price of a theater in a prefecture level city in central China was no less than 50 yuan. Some insiders said that the ticket price of the Spring Festival this year was the biggest increase since the Spring Festival in 2018.
Beijing Changyingtian Street IMAX Cinema ticket price source/screenshot of Taopiao APP There are objective factors behind the rise of ticket prices. In recent years, the consumption level has improved, which has driven the rise of film ticket prices to a certain extent; On the other hand, many film line managers said that in recent years, the distribution price paid to cinemas by film makers also increased slightly.
At the same time, due to the influence of supply and demand, the number of audiences on holidays has increased significantly, and the Spring Festival is also the peak time for watching movies. In order to survive, cinemas have begun to focus on raising prices to return to the blood. The Spring Festival shift of Watergate Bridge directly drives the overall ticket price rise.
Ticket prices continue to rise. It is worth noting that under the pressure of high ticket prices, the audience is fighting wits with the cinema to figure out "how to save money to watch movies", which brings money opportunities to film ticket purchasers. They are lurking among major film lovers, trying to make a fortune during the Spring Festival.
The ticket price of the Spring Festival stall has skyrocketed, and the audience can't help it.
Cinema prices rise in many ways
Previously, in the article "89 yuan a piece, I was persuaded to quit by the movie ticket price", Shen Ran mentioned that the price increase of cinemas is becoming increasingly fierce. According to Tuopu's data, the average price of movie tickets in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 was 34.4 yuan, 35.3 yuan, 37.1 yuan, 36.99 yuan and 40.3 yuan respectively, with year-on-year growth of 3.6%, 2.6%, 5%, - 0.32% and 9.5% respectively. Except for the impact of other factors such as the epidemic shutdown in 2020, the ticket price fell slightly and the overall growth rate was expanding.
In the Spring Festival this year, the price will continue to rise. In order to raise prices, cinemas have also come up with new tricks, starting from extensive to refined operations.
Shenzhen Burn found that the ticket price of different seats for the same movie has a difference of 1 yuan to 7 yuan. The price difference will be more concentrated in the gold market from 6:00 to 8:00 in the evening. Take the IMAX flagship store in Beijing Bona Daxiaoting as an example. In the pre-sale, the average seat around is 95.7 yuan, the middle seat is 100.7 yuan, and the price difference is 5 yuan.
Source of price difference at different locations in the same session/Taopiao APP This is not a new phenomenon. The price of good locations in cinemas is on the high side. There have been cinemas trying for several years. Tao, manager of the Happy Blue Ocean Cinema in Anji County, Zhejiang Province, mentioned to Shen Ran that his cinemas in the center of the city had begun to operate at the same price difference. When he arrived at the new store, the boss would also require this operation. This year, this phenomenon has become more common in large periods.
At the same time, some cinemas will raise ticket prices by "locking seats". According to a cinema manager, some cinemas will lock the golden seats in the middle of the room at the time of pre-sale, and then unlock them when they are officially released, in order to harvest the temporary ticket buyers. For example, films with a pre-sale ticket price of more than 40 yuan can be sold at a premium of one time when the golden seats are locked in the middle. However, several film line managers mentioned that the overall number of film tickets this year has doubled compared with normal times, and the space for further price increases is actually limited.
In order to sell more tickets at a better price, cinemas are also very cautious about pre selling tickets for this Spring Festival.
Many cinemas only dare to open the pre-sale for two more days, that is, two days before the opening of the film, to list the corresponding number of sales on the ticket platform.
One reason is that the film's reputation has not yet been fully released. From the layout of the first day of junior high school, according to the statistics of Cat's Eye Professional Edition, the layout of Watergate Bridge occupies 27% of the market share and the box office share reaches 43.4%, which is the market share that can support the industry's expectations. Although it has the foreshadowing of Changjin Lake, the advantage of this kind of film lies in its reputation. "The pre-sale or booking is too early, and if the reputation of the film collapses, the arrangement cannot be adjusted in time, which will also cause losses," said a cinema manager.
However, Manager Tao also said that "Watergate Bridge" added more battle scenes than "Changjin Lake", and many viewers were moved. "The public praise rate will probably not collapse," he said.
A cinema manager in Beijing mentioned that even if pre-sales were opened, only daytime shows would be held, and the prime stalls would not be opened at night, so that the price could be raised even higher when more audiences would be attracted to book tickets in the coming days.
Data source/deadline of lighthouse professional data/drawing at 19pm on February 1/Deep burning At the same time, the competition between cinemas has also led the theater managers not to start pre-sales too early. A cinema line manager said that this year, he would pay more attention to the prices of cinemas in the same area, and then adjust them according to the pricing of competitors. There is a trend of price war. Manager Tao mentioned that the ticket price this year is different from that in the past. In the past, it was very cheap for pre-sale. Later, it became more and more expensive in holidays. This year, it started to be very expensive, and then gradually reduced according to the market situation. It is expected that after the third day of the Lunar New Year, ticket prices will fall further.
He said that the reason for adopting such a strategy was that the long-lived, highly anticipated and famous blockbusters such as Watergate Bridge had driven the whole market, and the expected increase in the number of viewers at the cinema had also driven the rise of other movie tickets.
"We can charge more and try to charge more." Manager Tao even mentioned that in such a general rising environment, if a single theater does not raise its price, it may be considered as vicious competition.
Audiences choose "purchase on behalf"
When the cinema raised prices, some audiences felt that they had been "cut off from leeks".
The rise in ticket prices has become a necessary topic for some audiences to complain about during the Spring Festival. Some viewers, after buying "high priced tickets", only complain on social networking sites, and some even choose not to read them directly.
Liu Shuang, a Beijing fan who watches movies during the Spring Festival every year, hesitated again and again after watching the pre-sales of this year's Spring Festival movies, and spent 250 yuan to order two Watergate Bridges. She sighed that she didn't expect the ticket price to be so expensive. She likes to paint movies. She can only see the public praise of other movies and then decide whether to buy them.
Compared with Liu Shuang and other veteran fans, Jin Jin, who lives in a small county, decided not to go to the cinema this year. She said that she did not expect that a movie ticket of more than 30 yuan would rise to 78 yuan for the Spring Festival, and it would cost 350 yuan for a family of five to watch a movie. "I don't look down upon it, but feel unnecessary," she added.
The ticket price is too high to dissuade the audience. Manager Tao mentioned that due to the poor pre-sale of the Spring Festival, he began to reduce the price in the morning, and the price of 63.8 yuan in the gold market fell to 57.8 yuan. In order to compete with cinemas in the same area, the cinema under his management has dropped to 38 yuan.
Source/Miracle, Stupid Child Some viewers began to look for "purchasing agent" to save money.
Zhou Po is a veteran fan. When he opened a pre-sale at the Spring Festival, he found an IMAX show with the original price of 140 yuan to make an inquiry. He mentioned to Shen Ran that for the movie tickets that can be obtained at ordinary times for more than 40 yuan, even if they are purchased on behalf of others, the minimum price for this Spring Festival is 90 yuan. He still felt that the purchase price of the Spring Festival stall this year was too high. Finally, he gave up the Spring Festival stall and did not plan to watch movies.
Shen Ran observed that there are "discount tickets" in Douban, Taobao and WeChat groups, and the slogans of "tight seats in Spring Festival, agreed in advance", "six fold up, need to talk alone", "film tickets across the country are purchased on a commission basis, and each ticket is 5-50 yuan cheaper" were used to attract consumers. Most of these movie discount tickets are paid to cinema members by middlemen, who charge about 2000 yuan at a time to obtain the discount price of members to earn the price difference.
It is also very simple for users to purchase tickets on behalf of others. They only need to send the movie number and seat information of the ticket purchase platforms such as Cat's Eye and Taopiao tickets to the purchase agent, and the other party will issue a QR code for scanning tickets. Both parties focus on WeChat, Taobao and other places for transactions.
Wang told Shen Ran that he had discount tickets for Wanda, Jinyi, Dadi, Lumiere and other cinemas. In the past two years, more and more people have come to inquire. However, he also mentioned that the price of discount tickets has also increased due to the rise in ticket prices during the Spring Festival this year. The price of hundreds of tickets is 80-90 yuan, which can save 20 or 30 yuan, but it is about 30 yuan more than the usual discount tickets. Because of the great demand for the Spring Festival, he estimated that he could earn at least 3000 yuan during the 7-day holiday for the Spring Festival this year.
Where there is a market, there is a business. The problem is that when ordinary audiences go to the cinema to watch movies, they need to "look for low prices" and "look for scalpers", the resulting series of gray industrial chains may not be a good signal for the film and television industry.
How long can the price increase last?
First of all, we need to admit that behind the price increase, there are objective reasons why the cinema is uncontrollable.
One is that cinemas need to face increasingly uncontrollable changes. The epidemic makes the audience's viewing schedule uncertain. A cinema line manager reported that he found that the audience's viewing habits had been affected by the epidemic. "I bought the ticket, but tomorrow because the epidemic could not come, I would have to refund the ticket."
Manager Tao said that the recurrence of the epidemic has also kept 20% of the seats locked for a long time in cinemas. It is impossible to have a full session. As for cinemas, the type of film also determines to some extent that some audiences can accept the rise in ticket prices. For example, from the perspective of duration, Watergate Bridge is three hours long, and a row of Watergate Bridge can be close to two rows of Miracle Stupid Children. At this time, ticket prices were relatively high and reasonable.
The most important reason is that a cinema manager in a third tier city told Shen Ran that the hard costs of cinemas determine that they need to maintain a high pressure state all the time, and the top blockbuster films tend to be released on holidays. In the past, normal film arrangement will not have a particularly empty schedule, but this will soon become the norm in 2021.
Source/Four Seas The impact of this is that cinemas tend to be more eager to catch the hot schedule. Manager Tao said that in the off-season, there were 8 halls in his movie city, and there were less than 50 people watching movies a day. In the Spring Festival, there were thousands of people. With such a high demand increase, and knowing how to make money, he must want to earn more. "If it doesn't work in the future, we will have to close down. Now we can earn more money, and we can still support more time in the future.".
Manager Tao said, "Now everything is out of control, and cinemas are afraid of it." Raising ticket prices is the only place that cinemas, as the end of the industry, can control.
A theater line manager of Bona also said, "If there are two schedules that do not make money, the cinema will basically lose money." In his opinion, the epidemic is unstable now, and a popular schedule must be able to recover at least one-third of the annual cost, so that the cinema can survive.
Raising prices is the only way for cinemas to solve their anxiety about survival. In order to match the corresponding high ticket price, the cinema also focuses on the service. According to a cinema manager, some cinemas will add cushions to the original seats or replace them with massage chairs. Some will start from the lobby to help the audience collect tickets, clean their glasses and shoes. However, manager Tao said that the audience may not like this kind of ancillary services. "Their choice of watching a movie mainly depends on the content of the movie."
The box office is getting higher and higher. At present, some audiences have stopped buying it.
According to the data of the Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of February 1, the average person time of Watergate Bridge was the highest, 75 people, and the average person time of eight new films was 37 people. Compared with 2021, the average person time of the first day of "Chinatown Detective 3" reached 108, and the average person time of the seven new films was 52. This year's average person time is not ideal. A cinema line manager said that the first day of the lunar new year was a day when the audience was very enthusiastic about watching movies, which basically represented the level of people in the Spring Festival. The epidemic is one of the important reasons behind this, or it is related to the high ticket price.
As for the high ticket prices during the Spring Festival, one theater manager said that he regretted that the high price increase had led to unsatisfactory pre-sales. There are more than 5000 seats in the eight theaters under his management, but the attendance rate on the first day of junior high school is only 25%, that is, only more than 1000 people buy tickets. "It's still too late to lower the price, and it might be better to lower the attendance rate earlier," he said.
Previously, in "89 yuan a piece, I was persuaded by the ticket price of the movie", Shen Ran mentioned that in order to win high box office in holidays, the films piled up and ticket prices rose, which had an impact on the audience that movies interested in going to the cinema were also mainly concentrated in holidays. In this period, the price would always rise flexibly, even double the usual price, which was a considerable expense.
This series of price increases has made movie watching no longer an impulsive consumption, but an entertainment way that requires "travel planning and careful choice". If the experience is not good, it will also cause "psychological imbalance" of consumers. It is not conducive to the development of the industry to make it more difficult for cinemas to have the opportunity to transform ordinary audiences into fans who are accustomed to consuming in cinemas.
"Judging from the pre-sale situation in previous years, no matter what films are shown before the third day of the New Year, the attendance rate is basically full. In this case, the ticket prices will remain high before the third day of the New Year." Manager Tao said that after the third day of the New Year, the ticket prices of films including Watergate Bridge will be reduced gradually, and the overall price will be 5-10 yuan cheaper than the previous three days.
Some theater managers also said that after the peak period, the movie tickets will be reduced, and the audience can wait. However, in the midst of the controversy over high ticket prices, can the audience be easily pulled back?
