Yo,

This has been really bugging me.
Go to the cinema any night of the week and most screens wont even be 25% full. On a weekday most are empty.

Price of premier (and leicester square) in london £15, premium seats £20
Add £2 for 3d and £1 for glasses.

You get plastered with adverts for 10-20 minutes. Food is the most expensive around (and the worst).

All in all 2 mates at the cinema after a few pints is a pricey mediocre night out.

Why dont they drop the prices? Even at the end of a films run they dont reduce the price, why? they have nothing to loose.
What ever happened to the business model - "Get bums on seats", is cinema-oxygen at a premium these days?

I saw avatar-3d in boston for $7, 1/3 the price of london.
In belfast they have "Crazy tuesdays", every movie is £2.50. Swindon regular price is £5.90.
But still I can see 3 rockin bands across 4 hours for £15.
What is the deal with london cinema management?
source (old)

/End of rant

[Edited by - RivieraKid on October 11, 2010 5:17:21 AM]

I find the prices quite variable. The only place I've been charged £15 is the Leicester Square Odeon. In Croydon I pay around £8 for a ticket at Vue. Admittedly I usually only venture into London to see a film if it's not showing locally, which usually means independent cinemas. These recently include the Greenwich Picturehouse (£7), Screen on the Green Islington (£11) and Curzon Soho (£12.50). That said, I've a ticket for the Covent Garden Odeon that was £9.50.

The price of just about everything goes up the closer to London you are. I don't find cinema prices particularly offensive in comparison to anything else.

The Cineworld in Edinburgh (Which is just about the only decent cinema in Edinburgh) is £8.50 or something for an adult ticket, also add £3 or so for 3D films.

And they wonder why people pirate films...

i get that london is more expensive, what i dont get is the cinema staff standing around doing nothing while patrons pass up the cinema because its too expensive. They should use an airline system, if the cinema is empty it should be cheaper.

Woah that's expensive. I thought I was getting ripped off in Florida when they charged 11 dollars, but 24 USD for a ticket would be too much for me. I pay like £3.75 (6 USD student ticket) though for a ticket in Michigan.

Maybe their models suggest that at £20 they'll get 100 people, at £10 they'd get 175... i.e still more profit.

Exactly. Halve your prices and if you don't at least double your customers, you've lost money. I expect they think that pretty much everybody who wants to see a film will pay the existing prices to do so, so reducing the price won't bring in that many extra people.