The fierce competition for the Spring Festival Film has ended, with the total box office exceeding 5.8 billion yuan and the box office performance exceeding the 2018 Spring Festival Film. Just like coins on the positive and negative sides, the highlights of this Spring Festival season are accompanied by a "slot" - a rise in the price of movie tickets. Is a movie ticket with rising prices the "touchstone" of audiences'wallets or the "touchstone" of movie quality?
Spring Festival Film Ticket Price Rising in Some Cinemas Accelerates the Differentiation between High and Low Word-of-mouth Movies
Eight new films were released in the Spring Festival this year, of which "Wandering Earth" topped the box office with $2 billion in six days, and "Crazy Aliens" and "Life at a Fast Speed" ranked two or three. In addition to the content of the film, the rise in ticket prices has also attracted a lot of attention.
According to the Lighthouse Professional Edition, the average fare of the Spring Festival File in 2019 was 44.62 yuan, up 12.3% from 39.72 yuan in 2018, which is the biggest increase since 2014.
Yuan Xinyu, a film distributor, said: "The doubling of ticket prices in some third and fourth-tier City cinemas during the Spring Festival is a short-term price adjustment in the Spring Festival archives, which is unlikely to last forever."
According to the reporter's interview, the ticket price of "Crazy Aliens" in a cinema in Anqing City, Anhui Province, on the first day of the New Year was 60 yuan, while recently it dropped to about 37 yuan. "A family of three who watch a movie during the Spring Festival costs nearly 200 yuan and can buy members of a video website for one year." Anqing citizen Li Jinlong said.
At the same time of the overall increase in ticket prices, this Spring Festival, high-end, low-profile film box office ice and fire phenomenon is more obvious. "Wandering Earth" surpassed the total box office of Junior One all the way to become the leading box office champion of the Spring Festival, while some films were flat.
With the sinking of China's film market, third and fourth-tier cities have gradually become the "main force" of box office. Kong Rong, a researcher at Everbright Securities, said that in reality, the demand for movies in the third and fourth tier cities is more flexible, that is, some price-sensitive audiences may give up watching movies after the price increases.
"I've seen two or three movies in the past year, but only one during the Spring Festival this year. Of course, I'll choose a good reputation." Li Jinlong said.
There are reasons behind the shortage of tickets and the high cost of tickets.
Throughout recent years, the average ticket price of movies, whether in the Spring Festival season or the whole year, is actually in a rising trend. From the "Spring Festival surge" to see the "overall rise", the reasons behind it deserve attention.
—— Ticket allowances are gradually abolished. It is difficult to reproduce a "nine-nine" low price ticket. In the second half of 2018, news began to circulate about the cancellation of ticket supplements. Many people in the industry said that the history of film makers relying on "burning money" to depress ticket prices in order to "cheat" audiences into cinemas to see "bad films" at low prices has passed. "Nowadays, as long as it is bad films, no matter how cheap they are, they are unwilling to see it." When filmmakers prefer to put subsidies in the pre-sale stage to increase the rate of film production, there is almost no subsidies in the formal release stage, and ticket prices will naturally rise as a whole.
—— Some City cinemas are not easy to survive, and the profit-making effect of Spring Festival stalls is prominent. Yuan Xinyu said that for the third and fourth-tier cities, theater expansion has exceeded the growth rate of its audience in recent years, the average attendance rate of theaters is not ideal, and the Spring Festival stall of "tickets do not worry about selling" has become an important source of income for the whole year. "For small cinemas, the Spring Festival slot can account for 20% to 30% of their annual income." Kong Rong said that during the Spring Festival, cinemas have the incentive to raise the price of single screen output, especially in the third and fourth-tier cities where fewer cinemas are available for joint price increases.
—— Audiences and the film's status changed, and ticket prices began to match the quality of the work. Huang Yongfan, a film practitioner, said, "Before, many domestic audiences had no habit of watching movies. We had to lower the price of tickets to pull people into the cinema, which made the price of tickets paid by the audiences and the input cost of the film studio are not proportional. Nowadays, audiences have the willingness to watch movies and the ability to distinguish the quality of movies. It will become normal for good works to have a price that matches their quality.
High-quality films are the foundation of the development of the film market
"It's understandable that cinemas will increase their prices during the Spring Festival, but within a reasonable range, doubling their prices is no different from drying up the market and overdrawing the market." Yuan Xinyu said.
With this year's Spring Festival Film ticket price rise caused concern, there are also piracy issues. When the reporter searches for the word "movie" on a second-hand website, the information of "synchronized cinema on the courtyard line, only 1 yuan" appears. The content of the display includes hot movies such as "Wandering Earth" and "Crazy Aliens" during the Spring Festival.
"Regulating and cracking down on piracy is one aspect, and the audience's consciousness is also very important." Industry insiders say that viewers who are reluctant to see high-priced movies actually have many other options to support the genuine version, such as buying low-priced pre-sales in advance, or watching genuine movies on video websites after the filing date is off line. "Only by respecting the genuine edition can the audience promote the healthy development of the Chinese film market. At the same time, the film industry produces more high-quality films, which is the foundation of the development of the film market."