Shenrancaijing original
Author | Wanqi
Edit | Li Qiuhan
The 2022 Spring Festival stalls officially started.
According to the 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 the 2022 Spring Festival has exceeded 2 billion. Five of the eight new films have already had hundreds of millions of first-day box office pre-sales. "The Watergate Bridge of Chosin Lake" (hereinafter referred to as "Watergate Bridge") reached 668 million yuan on the first day, breaking the cumulative box office record of the Spring Festival drama in the past three years. "Four Seas" and "This Killer Is Not Calm" grossed more than 200 million, while the previously optimistic "Miracle Stupid Child" fell behind to fourth, with less than 200 million on the first day.
At the same time, the "skyrocketing" ticket price has once again become a hot topic.
According to the statistics of Maoyan Professional Edition, on the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2022, the national average ticket price was as high as 58.7 yuan, an increase of 45.6% over the annual average ticket price of 40.3 yuan in 2021. According to the records on the Taobao Ticket APP, in theaters in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the golden ticket price of a single IMAX 2D hall has even reached 179 yuan, and in theaters in central prefecture-level cities, the average price is not less than 50 yuan. Some insiders said that this year's Spring Festival ticket price is the largest increase since the Spring Festival in 2018.
Beijing ChangyaoTianjie IMAX Cinema Movie Ticket Price Source / Screenshot of Taobao Ticket APP
Behind the rise in ticket prices, there are objective factors. In recent years, the level of consumption has increased, to a certain extent, driving the rise in movie ticket prices; on the other hand, many theater managers have said that in recent years, the distribution price given to movie theaters by filmmakers has also increased slightly.
At the same time, affected by the relationship between supply and demand, the audience on holidays has increased significantly, and the Spring Festival stall is the peak period for watching movies, and the theater has begun to concentrate on price increases and blood in order to survive. And "Watergate Bridge" airborne Spring Festival stalls, but also directly led to the entire market ticket price increase.
Ticket prices continue to rise, it is worth noting that the audience under the pressure of high ticket prices, and the theater wrestling wits, in the calculation of "how to save money to watch movies", which brings opportunities to the movie ticket purchasers, they are lurking in the major film lovers, trying to take advantage of the Spring Festival to make a lot of money.
The ticket price of the Spring Festival stall "soared", and the audience finally couldn't hold back.
There are many ways to increase the price of theaters
Previously, in the article "89 yuan a piece, I was dissuaded by the movie ticket price", Shen Yan mentioned that the price increase in the theater has become more and more intense. According to Tuopu 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, an increase of 3.6%, 2.6%, 5%, -0.32%, 9.5% respectively, except for other factors such as the shutdown of the theater in 2020, the ticket price fell slightly, and the overall growth rate was expanding.
In this year's Spring Festival stalls, the price increase continued. In order to increase prices, theaters have also made new tricks and begun to shift from extensive to refined operations.
Deep Burning found that the price of different seats in the same movie has a difference of 1 yuan to 7 yuan. The number of trades with spreads will be more concentrated in the gold market from 6 to 8 pm. Taking the Beijing Bona Suburb Pavilion IMAX flagship store as an example, in the pre-sale, the ordinary seating in the surrounding area is 95.7 yuan, the middle position is 100.7 yuan, and the difference is 5 yuan.
The same session of different positions difference source / Taobao ticket APP
This is not a new phenomenon, the good location in the theater pricing is high, in the early years there are movie theaters in the attempt, Zhejiang Anji County Happy Blue Ocean Cinema Tao manager mentioned to shen yan, his original theater in the city center has begun to operate at the same price difference, to the new store, the boss will also require such operation. This year, in the big slot, this phenomenon has become more common.
At the same time, some theaters will increase ticket prices by "locking". According to a theater manager, some theaters will first lock the golden seat in the middle at the time of pre-sale, and then unlock it when it is officially released, with the purpose of harvesting the audience who bought temporary tickets. For example, a movie with a pre-sale ticket price of more than 40 yuan locks the middle golden seat and can sell it at the right time at a premium. However, a number of theater managers mentioned that this year's movie tickets as a whole have doubled compared with usual, and the space for price increases is actually limited.
In order to sell more tickets at a better price, this year's Spring Festival movie tickets, the theater is also quite cautious about pre-sale tickets.
Many cinemas only dare to open the pre-sale for two more days, that is, two days before the opening of the movie, they hang up the corresponding sales on the ticketing platform.
One reason is that the current word of mouth of the film has not yet been fully released. Judging from the schedule of the first grade, according to the statistics of Maoyan Professional Edition, the "Watergate Bridge" row occupies 27% of the market share, and the box office accounts for 43.4%, which is the market share that can support the industry's expectations. Although it has the foreshadowing of "Chosin Lake", the advantage of this type of film lies in word of mouth, "pre-sale or scheduled opening is too early, if there is a film reputation collapse, can not adjust the schedule in time, it will also cause losses." A theater manager said.
However, Manager Tao also said that "Watergate Bridge" added more battle scenes than "Chosin Lake", and many viewers were very touched to see it. "Word of mouth will most likely not collapse." He said.
A theater manager in Beijing mentioned that even if there is a pre-sale, it will only open during the day, and the golden stall will not be opened at night, so as to attract more audiences who have booked tickets temporarily, which can raise the price higher.
Data Source / Lighthouse Pro Data Cut-off Time / February 1 at 19:00 Mapping / Deep Burning
At the same time, the competition between theaters has also led to theater managers not daring to open the pre-sale too early. A theater manager said that this year will pay more attention to the price of theaters in the same area, and then adjust according to the pricing of opponents, there is a trend of fighting a price war. Manager Tao mentioned that this year's ticket price is not the same as in the past, in the past, the pre-sale was sold very cheaply, and then it became more and more expensive to the holidays, and this year it began to sell very expensive, and then gradually reduced the price according to the market situation. It is expected that after the third day of the Chinese New Year, the ticket price will drop a little more.
He said that the reason for this strategy is that blockbusters such as "Watergate Bridge" that are long,000, have high expectations and have national fame have driven the entire market, and the theater's expectations for the number of viewers have increased, which has also led to an increase in tickets for other movies.
"We can charge a little more, as much as we can." Manager Tao even mentioned that in such a generally rising environment, if there is a single theater that does not raise prices, it may be considered a vicious competition.
Audience choose "Daigou"
The theater raised prices, and some viewers felt that they had been "cut leeks".
The rise in movie ticket prices has become a necessary topic for some viewers to complain about during the Spring Festival. Some viewers, after buying "high-priced tickets", only complained on social networks, and some even directly chose not to watch.
Liu Shuang, a Beijing film fan who watches movies every year during the Spring Festival, hesitated and spent 250 yuan to book two copies of "Watergate Bridge" after watching the pre-sale of this year's Spring Festival movies. She sighed, did not expect the ticket price to be so expensive, like to brush the movie she, other movies can only see word of mouth, and then decide whether to buy or not to buy.
Compared with liu shuang and other senior film fans to buy tickets to watch movies more and more cautiously, Jin Jin, who lives in a small county town, decided not to go to the cinema this year. She said that she did not expect that the usual 30 yuan a movie ticket, the Spring Festival can rise to 78 yuan a piece, the whole family of five to watch a movie will cost 350 yuan. "I don't look down on it, I don't think it's necessary." 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 stall, the price of the morning market began to be reduced, and the price of the golden field of 63.8 yuan dropped to 57.8 yuan. In order to compete with theaters in the same area, the studio he manages has dropped to 38 yuan.
Source / Miracle Stupid Kid
Some viewers began to look for "purchasing" to save money.
Zhou Bao is a veteran film fan, when he opened the pre-sale in the Spring Festival file, he found an IMAX scene with an original price of 140 yuan to inquire on behalf of the purchasing group. He mentioned to Shen Yan that the movie tickets that can be won for more than 40 yuan in normal times, even if it is looking for a purchasing agent, the minimum is 90 yuan for the Spring Festival this year. This year's Spring Festival stall on behalf of the purchase price, he still feels that the price is inflated, and finally, give up the Spring Festival stall, do not plan to watch the movie.
Deep burning observation, in the Douban, Taobao, WeChat groups have "discounted fares", and played "Spring Festival stall seats are tight, agreed in advance", "60% off, need a single chat", "all over the country movie tickets to buy, each cheap 5-50 yuan" and other slogans to attract consumers. Most of the discounted tickets for such movies are specially recharged by middlemen to recharge theater members, charging about two thousand yuan at a time, and obtaining discounted prices for members to earn the difference.
The user to buy tickets is also very simple, only need to send the movie scene, seat information of the ticketing platform such as Maoyan and Taobao tickets to the purchase agent, and the other party will issue a two-dimensional code for scanning the ticket. The two sides concentrated on WeChat, Taobao and other places to trade.
Xiao Wang, the movie ticket purchaser, told Shen Yan that he had discounted tickets from various theaters such as Wanda, Jinyi, Dadi, and Lumiere. In the past two years, more and more people have come to inquire. However, he also mentioned that this year's Spring Festival stalls have also increased the unit price of discounted tickets because of the increase in ticket prices. The unit price of hundreds of times, his price is 80-90 yuan, can save twenty or thirty, but it is also a premium of about 30 yuan compared to the usual discount ticket. Because of the great demand for the Spring Festival, he estimated that this year's Spring Festival 7 days off, at least three thousand yuan can be earned.
There is a market for business, the problem is that when ordinary audiences go to the cinema to see movies need to "find low prices" and "find scalpers", a series of gray industrial chains derived from this are probably not a good signal for the film and television industry.
How long can the price increase last?
The first thing that needs to be admitted is that behind the price increase, there are indeed objective reasons that the theater cannot control.
One is that theaters need to face increasingly uncontrollable changes. The pandemic has made audiences' viewing itineraries uncertain. A theater manager feedback that he found that the audience's viewing habits have been affected by the epidemic, "I originally bought a ticket, but tomorrow because the epidemic can't come, I have to refund the ticket." ”
Manager Tao said that the recurrence of the epidemic has also allowed the theater to maintain 20% of the seats locked for a long time, and it is impossible to sit full. Specific to the theater, the type of film also determines to a certain extent that some audiences can accept the increase in ticket prices, for example, from the perspective of duration, "Watergate Bridge" is up to three hours, and a row of "Watergate Bridge" can be queued for nearly two "Miracle Stupid Children". At this time, the movie ticket price is relatively higher and more reasonable.
The most important reason is that a theater manager in a third-tier city told Shen Yan that the hard cost of the theater determines that they need to maintain a high-pressure state all the time, and the head of the blockbuster film is often concentrated on holidays. In the past, there was no special empty schedule for normal scheduling, but this has almost become the norm in 2021.
Source / Four Seas
The impact of this is that theaters tend to be more eager to catch the hot slot. Manager Tao said that in the off-season, his studio has 8 halls, and the number of people watching movies a day is not even 50 people, and in the Spring Festival, there are thousands of people, under such a high demand increase, in the case of known money, it is definitely necessary to make more. "In the future, if it doesn't work, it will have to go out of business, and now I can earn a little more, and I can hold on a little longer in the future."
Manager Tao said, "Now everything has become uncontrollable, and the cinema is afraid." "And increasing ticket prices is the only place that theaters as the end of the industry can control."
A bona theater manager also said, "But if there are two slots that do not make money, the cinema basically loses money." In his view, now that the epidemic is unstable, a popular schedule must be able to recover at least one-third of the annual cost before the theater can hope to survive.
Raising prices is the only way for theaters to solve their survival anxieties. In order to match the corresponding high ticket prices, the theater also set its sights on the service. According to a theater manager, some theaters will add cushions to the original seats or change them into massage chairs, and some will help the audience get tickets from the lobby, help polish glasses, shine shoes, etc. However, Manager Tao said that the audience does not necessarily like such ancillary services, "they choose to watch movies, the most important thing is still based on the content of the movie." ”
The box office is getting higher and higher, and at present, some viewers are no longer buying it.
According to the data of the lighthouse professional version, as of February 1, "Watergate Bridge" has the highest average number of people per game, with 75 people, and the average number of people per game in the eight new films is 37. Compared with 2021, the average number of people on the first day of "Detective Chinatown 3" reached 108, and the average number of people per game in the seven new films was 52. This year's average attendance is not ideal. A theater manager said that the first day of the first year is a day when the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies is extremely high, which basically represents the number of people in the Spring Festival slot. The epidemic behind this is one of the important reasons, or it may be related to excessive ticket prices.
For the high ticket price of the Spring Festival stall, a theater manager said that the price increase was too high, resulting in unsatisfactory pre-sales and regretted it. The eight auditoriums he manages have more than 5,000 seats, but the attendance rate of the first grade is only 25%, that is, only more than 1,000 people buy tickets. "The price reduction is still late, and the attendance rate may be better if it is lowered earlier." He said.
Previously, in "89 yuan a piece, I was dissuaded by the movie ticket price", Shen Ran mentioned that in order to fight for a high box office on holidays, the film piled up, and the ticket price rose, which brought to the audience the impact that the movies that were interested in going to the cinema were mainly concentrated in the holidays, and the price would often increase flexibly during this period, and the price was even doubled than usual, which was a big expense.
This series of price increases makes watching movies no longer an impulsive consumption, but an entertainment method that requires "travel planning and careful choice", and if the experience is not good, it will also cause consumers to be "psychologically unbalanced". Making it more difficult for theaters to have the opportunity to convert ordinary audiences into fans who are accustomed to spending in theaters is not conducive to the development of the industry.
"Judging from the pre-sales situation in previous years, before the third day of the Chinese New Year, no matter what movie is released, the attendance rate is basically full. In this case, the high ticket pricing will be maintained before the third year of junior high. Manager Tao said that after the third year of junior high school, the ticket prices of movies including "Watergate Bridge" will be reduced one after another, 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, movie tickets will come down, and the audience can wait. However, in the midst of a high-fare controversy, can the audience be easily pulled back?
*The inscription is from "Watergate Bridge". At the request of the interviewees, Liu Shuang and Xiao Wang are pseudonyms in the text.