Alas, other cinema owners have yet to copy another feature of the Peckham Multiplex: the fact that tickets cost £2.99. That’s every seat for every film at any time of the day. This makes Peckham probably the best-value cinema in London for first-run features.
There are cheaper places to watch films, such as the Prince Charles Cinema, off Leicester Square, where tickets are £1 on a Monday, but these offer second runs and cult films. Peckham is showing the same titles as you would get at an Odeon or a UCI.
Steep ticket prices in London are not a new thing, but retain the power to provoke. The American writer David Sedaris wrote in the The New Yorker this month about his shock at spending £20.50 on a pair of cinema tickets in “cruelly, insanely expensive” London. A survey, conducted this October by Pricerunner AB, a consumer price comparison website, has confirmed Britain to be the most expensive place in Europe to go to the cinema, with tickets for first-run films costing an average £9.54. (Out of interest, Lithuania, at £2.58, is the cheapest). 18 European countries contributed to the study and the prices were based on a full price evening ticket. London, naturally, is the most expensive city in Britain. But wallet-drain is not confined to the capital. A ticket for Bridget Jones, at 8pm on a Monday evening at Birmingham Star City is £13.
Yet cinemas are rarely full. According to the business empire easyGroup, which has branched into movie houses with its easyCinema brand, the average is 20 per cent occupancy. It was “dangerously low levels of attendance” at Peckham two years ago that led Hurrell and his business partner, Chris Green, to their radical pricing policy. “We were conscious of the social deprivation of the area and the high density of population,” says Hurrell.
He says that their gamble has paid off. “It’s been very successful; the returns from films are much better.”
Although Peckham looks like any other local cinema, there have been a few costcutting measures. The box office, for instance, isn’t open all day; at off-peak times, you buy your ticket from the person who sells popcorn.
So, why can’t all cinemas do the same thing? Hurrell, who used to be the manager of the Empire, Leicester Square, won’t criticise the West End. “It’s like chalk and cheese. They have massive overheads, which we don’t.”
John Wilkinson, chief executive of the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association, agrees. “Actually, the big cinemas are underpriced. There are higher rates and staff costs; cinemas generally pay above the minimum wage, and in the West End, you have to pay more.” And, ultimately, he says, “you price your ticket to the local market”.
Another factor is that, at Peckham, there are no concessions. “The West End headline rate is expensive, but the rates before 6pm, say, aren’t. You’ve got to choose your time. Everyone wants to go to the cinema on Friday and Saturday nights, and so the prices then manage the flow of people.”
Not everyone is so sanguine. In 2003 Stelios Haji-Ioannou declared a war on rip-off cinema prices, opening easyCinema in Milton Keynes. Following his company’s philosophy of high volume and low margins in ventures such as easyJet, the idea was that, by booking in advance on the internet, customers could pay as little as 20p per ticket according to how full the cinema was. There were to be no frills — no popcorn, no usherettes. A year and a half down the line, easyCinema have had to make a few changes. The original 20p-a-seat minimum has risen to 50p for golden oldies and cult films, but first-run features cost £4.50 in the evening and £3.50 before 5pm.
Other independent cinemas have gone in the opposite direction and emphasised the sense of occasion. Following the rule of catering to your local market, some venues in prosperous locations, such as the Electric in Notting Hill and the Everyman Cinema Club in Hampstead, have introduced leather sofas, footstools and tables on which to place your chilled bottle of chablis. Tickets range from £9 to £15. Daniel Broch, of the Everyman, doesn’t think his prices are too high. “I think we’re retranslating what is an undervalued experience,” he says. “After all, going to the pub is a tenner.”
His focus is on a luxury experience. Snacks at the Everyman include salami and olives and “five praline-filled Belgian fruits-de-mer chocolates” for £2.50. What about popcorn? “No popcorn,” says Broch. “It denotes the venue in one major way: the smell. And it’s a very poor deal.”
Ah, the price of popcorn. This, perhaps more than tickets, is the major bugbear of filmgoers. With the distributors taking around half of the box office, the snack stand is where cinemas make their profits At Peckham, the price of a large popcorn is £3.50; more than the ticket itself. Chris Green says: “It’s a necessary evil. We watch other cinema operators and see what they’re charging, and try to come a little lower.”
Even easyCinema have capitulated on their original policy of no snacks and now offer popcorn, drinks and sweets for £1 a portion. “We initially resisted it,” says James Rothnie, from easyGroup, “but we can now provide it at a reasonable price. It’s an obvious source of revenue.”
So, what happens if you want to see a new release without paying top whack? There are ways round. UGC, for instance, offer an Unlimited Card for £9.99 a month (£12.99 in the West End) which allows you to see any film, any time. Or you could visit off-peak, or be elderly or a child. Or, alternatively, you could just move to Peckham. Or Milton Keynes. Or Lithuania.
We find the UK’s priciest popcorn
THERE IS a scene in True Romance where Patricia Arquette throws her popcorn over Christian Slater to get him to notice her. There’s another, in Diner, when Mickey Rourke, sitting in the cinema with a tub of popcorn on his lap, makes use of the opening at the base of the tub to ensure that his date touches a part of his body that she might otherwise not to be inclined to. Both of these techniques now seem rather dated. Who, these days, could afford to waste popcorn like that? Madonna always remembers how poverty-stricken she was, early on in New York, by recalling that she “survived” on popcorn. Now a steak would be a cheaper alternative. A large popcorn from the Odeon West End costs £4. For that £4, a cinemagoer receives 145g of popcorn. To make the equivalent amount at home, you would need to heat up 60ml of vegetable oil, costing 4p (at 60p a litre), add 140g of popcorn, 19p (at 69p for 500g) and, when popped, coat with, say, 50g of sugar, costing 3p (at £1.35 for 2kg). Grand total: 26p. Add on a few pence for the use of a gas ring for three minutes.
- Is £4 for 145g the priciest cinema popcorn in the UK? Write to artsed@thetimes.co.uk with your tales of popcorn extortion
