The cinema...WTF !!!

Depressing.

Went to the cinema after work with a couple of my work chums to catch Saw 3D, actually enjoyed the film!

Ticket, Large Pepsi (no ice) and a bit of chocolate = £16.
 
Cinema near us sometimes ask people to open their bags :(

To be fair a few times we have been over in our work stuff and with bags (just said it's got our change of clothes in and we've come straight over as we didn't want to miss the film) and we have had a tonne of food in there :)
 
It isn't any better in Finland. Typical scenario: I go to watch a movie with someone between Fri-Sun. It's 14€ per ticket and 3€ for parking for a total of 31€. No popcorn, no coke, nothing, just the bare minimum. Alternatively I wait 2 months and buy the Blu-Ray on release day for 15-18€ with plenty of extras on the disc. Even in best case scenario, you only break even with two people vs. buying the Blu-Ray on day 1.

I watch easily hundred movies a year but I rarely go to the cinemas anymore. Couple of times a year the local cinema has special days and that's when I try to watch as many interesting movies as I can find from their schedule. This week they actually had one of those days: saw The Town, Due Date and The Social Network. Ended up costing less than a regular movie ticket on a regular day. I do want to watch movies at the cinema but not with these prices.

Actually it wasn't that long ago when I still visited the cinema regularly thanks to E-vouchers. 5-10 tickets for a fair average price. Then came 3D and they doubled the price of E-vouchers because you could use them in 3D movies as well. That was the end of that. I don't even want to see movies in 3D but they don't offer an alternative..
 
Tummy said:
Cinema near us sometimes ask people to open their bags :(

To be fair a few times we have been over in our work stuff and with bags (just said it's got our change of clothes in and we've come straight over as we didn't want to miss the film) and we have had a tonne of food in there :)
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most cinemas wont stop you entering with your own food, if some jobsworth tries ask for the manager.

worked on the bbc docu
 
Checking bags?! :(

I've never been asked / searched in the cinema. If anything, I walk in with a bottle of coke and some munchies under my arm 99% of the time. I'll never buy food at the cinema. Sorry £5 for a hotdog that's been sitting in the rack for 4hrs? Ych ya fi!
 
EVH said:
Checking bags?! :(

I've never been asked / searched in the cinema. If anything, I walk in with a bottle of coke and some munchies under my arm 99% of the time. I'll never buy food at the cinema. Sorry £5 for a hotdog that's been sitting in the rack for 4hrs? Ych ya fi!
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The main question is.... what are you doing eating in a cinema?
 
fini said:
You can't buy a single month of this though can you - I tried once. You have to buy a whole years worth! I remember when Virgin cinemas offered a single month's pass and I'd go near constantly during that month - but pay for an entire year? No thanks.
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Considering the OP just paid £8.10 / £8.20 just for the ticket then an extra £2.10 for the 3D part (and 80p for glasses if he didn't have any before), paying £13.50 a month works out cheaper even if you only go twice a month, then £1.50 for 3D films per film.

I kept my card on even when I was at uni because I know I'd see 6-7 films at least over the christmas period, then when visiting at occational weekends I could catch a film before driving back.
 
We took the kids to see Ice Age 3 in our local Odeon. Our family ticket saved us a whopping £1 off the price of 4 seperate tickets, and still cost £24. By the time we'd added drinks/sweets/popcorn it cost over £40.

And that was at 2pm on a Thursday, admittedly during school holidays.

On the flip side, we went to a little family run cinema near my Dad's in Wales. We saw Toy Story 3 about 2 weeks after release. It was £20 for 8 of us and sweets/drinks were shop prices.

Ok, we didn't have THX sound, and the place needed painting desperately, but we still had as much fun for half the price. And twice as many of us went.

Personally I think chain cinemas and the film studios are just jumping on piracy as an excuse. It seems to me that if piracy was that big a deal, they'd be dropping prices to try and get people in.
 
Take your own food they charge £5 for a coke and £8 for a bit of popcorn I think cinema popcorn is worth more than gold weight to weight
arknor said:
most cinemas wont stop you entering with your own food, if some jobsworth tries ask for the manager.

worked on the bbc docu
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Don't think you are allowed hot food though like mcdonalds
 
Antar Bolaeisk said:
They may sell the same 'crap' but they can't buy it in at the same prices therefore the cinema price would have to be higher just to have the same markup as a shop.
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What exactly are you referring to when you compare supplies costs between supermarkets and cinema?

How much more does pop-corn cost to the cinema to hit its mark-ups? Seriously, it's corn, it costs next to nothing both for the cinema and the shop/supermarket. It's not as if the margins are squeezed for the cinema here compared to the shop.

Also, all fizzy drinks are basically drink fountains based on syrup+water, again I would be quick to suggest that it might be cheaper for the cinema to procure these (they come in suryp packages) rather than the bottles the shop buys.

What are we left with then? doritos and hot dogs, ok they may be paying more there - or not?

Really, the food/drinks is the profit making machine for the cinema, that is understandable, but there is no argument that it costs them more than other retailers. The problem is that ticket prices are not profitable enough and they have to milk the sales of foodstuff to make up for it.
 
i always take a bottle of water, and some munchies in my jacket pocket.

not once stopped or asked not to take in own food.

proceed to laugh at everyone spending £3+ on a salty drink and popcorn.

Really, the food/drinks is the profit making machine for the cinema, that is understandable, but there is no argument that it costs them more than other retailers.
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it costs them peanuts more. but yes they do cook and prepare the food.

but what about sweet bags in wrappers? they make extortionate profit because once you are there, you are basically a captive audience. they simply screw u over - because they can. and they know it.
 
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I caved in the other night and went to see Paranormal Activity 2 with a few friends. I really don't like going to the cinema, it's not the cinema really, but the people in there. Anyway, £7.30 to watch it, not bad i suppose, didn't buy any food. The film starts...after a few minutes some **** starts using a laser pen on the screen Fffffuuuuuuuuuu. One my my friends went out to complain missing a couple minutes of the film, then a member of staff come in, stood at the front for a few minutes then left again...then the pratt with the laser pen started again...all the way through the film, i say all the way through, i left after 30 minutes and told my friends i'd wait in the arcade for them. Got my money back off Cineworld because the film was ruined and that's my last visit to a cinema for another 5 years...

Sorry to hijack the thread but i just had to vent about it :D

It got me thinking aswel, while playing TimeCrisis in the arcade, why don't cinemas mount some sort of camera above the screen facing the audience incase stuff like this happens, all the staff have to do is watch the feed and eject anyone who's ruining the film for other people?
 
kgi said:
What exactly are you referring to when you compare supplies costs between supermarkets and cinema?

How much more does pop-corn cost to the cinema to hit its mark-ups? Seriously, it's corn, it costs next to nothing both for the cinema and the shop/supermarket. It's not as if the margins are squeezed for the cinema here compared to the shop.

Also, all fizzy drinks are basically drink fountains based on syrup+water, again I would be quick to suggest that it might be cheaper for the cinema to procure these (they come in suryp packages) rather than the bottles the shop buys.

What are we left with then? doritos and hot dogs, ok they may be paying more there - or not?

Really, the food/drinks is the profit making machine for the cinema, that is understandable, but there is no argument that it costs them more than other retailers. The problem is that ticket prices are not profitable enough and they have to milk the sales of foodstuff to make up for it.
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Antar Bolaeisk said:
Fair enough the popcorn and drinks generally have mark ups in the region of hundreds%+ but again this is to make money and for cinemas the popcorn and drinks are generally the biggest sellers.

In saying that I have seen some cinemas which I think go overboard with the prices but it's still not fair to compare them to a highstreet supermarket.
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I had already mentioned about the popcorn and drinks being the money spinners for the cinema in an earlier post.
 
RichieUK said:
The film starts...after a few minutes some **** starts using a laser pen on the screen Fffffuuuuuuuuuu. One my my friends went out to complain missing a couple minutes of the film, then a member of staff come in, stood at the front for a few minutes then left again...then the pratt with the laser pen started again...all the way through the film,
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I know I shouldn't, but I couldn't help but laugh at that incident. Not so much at the actions of the "pratt", but by your reaction to the laser pen.

I can imagine in a horror flick, most people are going "oooh" and "aaah", at every moment of horror. You, on the hand, had reached a point where you weren't paying any attention to what was going on in the film, but more on the laser pointer. In effect, you had wasted your time and money to come and watch a red dot being shone on a projector screen.

:D
 
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