Original title: Shen Teng, breaking 25 billion! This year is the most expensive summer vacation in history? A ticket is approaching 50 yuan!Average movie ticket price hits record high
On August 28, the news that “Shen Teng starred in a movie with a box office exceeding 25 billion yuan” appeared on Weibo’s hot search. At the same time, netizens paid attention to the phenomenon of rising ticket prices for summer movies.
The picture comes from the idea of the worm
“I haven’t watched a movie for a long time, when did movie tickets become so expensive?” Recently, many viewers have expressed such emotion on social platforms.
Is it really getting more expensive to watch movies? According to public data, this is indeed the case.
Average summer fares hit a multi-year high
Data from the Lighthouse Platform shows that the average movie ticket price for this year’s summer season is 39.07 yuan, an increase of about 7% from last year’s 36.37 yuan, the highest in the summer season since 2014.
In first-tier cities, movie tickets are more expensive. Data shows that the average ticket price in first-tier cities this summer is as high as 47.49 yuan. It is the highest since detailed data (2014).
In other words, for two people to watch a movie in a first-tier city, the ticket price may cost nearly 100 yuan.
The average fares in second-, third-, and fourth-tier cities are 38.68 yuan, 37.11 yuan, and 37.33 yuan, respectively. Among them, the average fares in third- and fourth-tier cities have increased by about 15% compared with the same period in 2020.
Not only the summer season, but the overall movie ticket price this year has also climbed to the highest level in history.
The data shows that the average ticket price of movies in 2022 is 42.21 yuan, a significant increase from 40.29 yuan in 2021; compared with 2019 before the epidemic, an increase of about 14%.
(Movie ticket prices in tier 1-4 cities in recent years)
Since 2016, the average ticket price of domestic movies has only dropped briefly in 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic. In the past two years, it has stabilized at more than 40 yuan.
However, even affected by factors such as rising ticket prices and the superposition of the epidemic, the box office in this summer’s summer season still rose significantly compared with the same period last year. Data shows that as of August 27, the cumulative box office of the 2022 summer season has reached 8.881 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 20% over the same period last year.
Image from Times Financial Gallery
Attendance rate “seven consecutive declines”
The average ticket price keeps going up, making it even more expensive to watch a good movie.
The data shows that since 2022, 8 of the top ten films at the box office will have an average ticket price of over 40 yuan, and 5 of them will exceed 44 yuan. In particular, the box office champion “Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake” has an average ticket price of nearly 50 yuan.
In 2021, only 4 of the top ten films at the box office will have an average ticket price of more than 40 yuan.
The rise in movie ticket prices is not only related to the operating costs of theaters, but also closely related to the shooting, production costs and pricing of films.
Judging from the release notice, the film party’s improvement in settlement standards is the direct reason for pushing up the terminal ticket price.
Taking the movie “Life Events” released in June as an example, the release notice shows that the copyright owners, investors, producers and distributors set prices according to the national urban fare level based on production and operation costs and market supply and demand conditions.
Among them, the digital 2D ticket price of Class A cities (including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen 4 first-tier cities) is 40 yuan/person, and the 2D ticket of Class B cities (other cities except Class A) is 35 yuan/person. The fare in China’s giant screen A-class cities is 45 yuan, and the B-class cities are 40 yuan.
The price set by the filmmaker is only the settlement standard with the theater. The movie ticket price is a market-adjusted price, and the sales price is set by the theater itself.
However, since the cinema must settle the box office with the issuer according to the fare standard not lower than this, unless the cinema is willing to subsidize the fare in order to attract passengers; or there are other preferential measures, the cinema will only set the price at or above the standard.
The result is that under normal circumstances, even in third- and fourth-tier cities, viewers will spend a minimum of 35 yuan to watch “Life Events”.
The recently hit “Lonely Walk on the Moon” and “Tomorrow’s War” have the same settlement standards as “Life Events”.
The increase in ticket prices has also affected the audience’s enthusiasm for watching movies to a certain extent.
Since 2015, the attendance rate of domestic cinemas has dropped for seven consecutive years. Overall attendance fell from 17.4% to 6.7% in 2022.
In 2019, the attendance rate of movie theaters in my country was close to 10%, and it will be below 10% from 2020 to 2022, which are 8.1%, 7.9%, and 6.7% respectively. Attendance in 2022 was also the lowest in years.
The summer slot usually has better attendance than other slots. However, the attendance rate for this year’s summer vacation is only 6.6%, which is higher than last year’s 5.4%, but it is still significantly lower than the 11.5% in the 2020 summer vacation and 12% in the 2019 summer vacation.