Cinema Prices

ComfyKnickers

Myself and the hubby and two children went to cinema today, Ice Age 4 in 3D, tickets and food cost €68, Im still in shock and probably won't recover until Ice Age 7!!!! Now I know cinema food is a bit of a rip off and in fairness I bought 2 medium popcorn for the kids without actually realising the price but Christ, the two of then cost nearly €12.00!! On top of that then their drinks machine was broken so we had to get bottled drinks from the fridge, they were about €3.00 each for a small bottle of Dr Pepper. We wud have popped over to Tesco to buy stuff only my handbag wasn't bloody big enough to sneak the stuff in!!

How can they justify those prices?

Professey Chin

Food is all they make money on so the mark up is always going to be ridiculous.
As for justifying it, why would they have to without competition?

MitchKoobski

Ask their management?

You won't find your answer here, theres been multiple threads about cinemas prices and the like already.

Kylo Ren

They don't make much on the actual tickets so they jack the prices up on the food to make their profit. It's easy when you have a monopoly.

S28382

ComfyKnickers wrote: »

Myself and the hubby and two children went to cinema today, Ice Age 4 in 3D, tickets and food cost €68, Im still in shock and probably won't recover until Ice Age 7!!!! Now I know cinema food is a bit of a rip off and in fairness I bought 2 medium popcorn for the kids without actually realising the price but Christ, the two of then cost nearly €12.00!! On top of that then their drinks machine was broken so we had to get bottled drinks from the fridge, they were about €3.00 each for a small bottle of Dr Pepper. We wud have popped over to Tesco to buy stuff only my handbag wasn't bloody big enough to sneak the stuff in!!

How can they justify those prices?

HAHA that line just made me laugh its very funny:D, but yeah the prices are mental i brought my lads there before and it was near 45 euro i was shocked, needless to say i aint been back there since.

nkay1985

I don't know how anyone is shocked by cinema prices anymore, to be honest. That is expensive but you were paying for 3D tickets first of all. The popcorn is always going to be mad money and you just have to make a decision to buy it or not, nobody forces you. The bottled drink prices are bad too but that's the same situation as the popcorn.

I will say that I'm very happy that it's officially an Odeon now. Their premiere club is pretty good. If you join, you get 15% off tickets when you book online. You get 25% off the cardholder's ticket on Tuesdays. And you earn 10 points for every €1 you spend, which can be redeemed against tickets, food and drink.

jennygirl

yea, got my Premier Card for Odeon cinema Waterford, cut a nice discount on cinema tickets, booked online. brought the kids last tues,booked online.
i think everyone should get used to booking online and avoiding the popcorn counter to make an affordable afternoon out with the kids

tankbarry

or just download the film

merlante

tankbarry wrote: »

or just download the film

You have a theatre in your house?

Big difference between going to a good cinema with surround sound, atmosphere, etc., and watching sometimes crappy downloads on a TV or laptop in your living room. Not everything is worth seeing in the cinema, but it costs money for a reason...

Jason Todd

A friend of mine works in Storm/Odeon, I told him about all the threads on Boards like this one, and he basically said that there is nothing they can do. They don't make any money on the tickets, the same as petrol stations don't make on fuel and that popcorn, drinks & sweets is the only way to make a few pound. He told me the staff often have great ideas for cinema nights like have classic film nights like Die Hard or Pulp Fiction, reducing the tickets right down and even allowing alcohol on certain nights, having Xbox or Playstation nights on the big screen at low prices but management just don't want to know. I'm not talking about the management in the cinema, I mean the people who own the chains etc.

What myself and my missus do is get a large drink and popcorn between us and get a few munchies in Dunphy's on the way! If we bring the kids, we just don't eat anything ourselves and just get them something in Dunphy's.

And Dr. Pepper... eeeeww :eek::D

dazftw

Buy your popcorn in xtravision!!!! Some job.

FishBowel

And buy an Ice Age 4 second-hand DVD there next year for about €6.

deisedave

Jason Todd wrote: »

A friend of mine works in Storm/Odeon, I told him about all the threads on Boards like this one, and he basically said that there is nothing they can do. They don't make any money on the tickets, the same as petrol stations don't make on fuel and that popcorn, drinks & sweets is the only way to make a few pound. He told me the staff often have great ideas for cinema nights like have classic film nights like Die Hard or Pulp Fiction, reducing the tickets right down and even allowing alcohol on certain nights, having Xbox or Playstation nights on the big screen at low prices but management just don't want to know. I'm not talking about the management in the cinema, I mean the people who own the chains etc.

What myself and my missus do is get a large drink and popcorn between us and get a few munchies in Dunphy's on the way! If we bring the kids, we just don't eat anything ourselves and just get them something in Dunphy's.

And Dr. Pepper... eeeeww :eek::D

Playing Fifa on the big screen would be so fricken awesome

FishBowel wrote: »

And buy an Ice Age 4 second-hand DVD there next year for about €6.

If Xtra-Vision manage to stay open for another year they have shops closing down all around the country.

ComfyKnickers

nkay1985 wrote: »

I don't know how anyone is shocked by cinema prices anymore, to be honest. That is expensive but you were paying for 3D tickets first of all. The popcorn is always going to be mad money and you just have to make a decision to buy it or not, nobody forces you. The bottled drink prices are bad too but that's the same situation as the popcorn.

I will say that I'm very happy that it's officially an Odeon now. Their premiere club is pretty good. If you join, you get 15% off tickets when you book online. You get 25% off the cardholder's ticket on Tuesdays. And you earn 10 points for every €1 you spend, which can be redeemed against tickets, food and drink.

I know nobody forced me to buy popcorn or drink or go in the first place for that matter, but whether I buy it or not doesn't take from the fact that it's ridiculous money, if Tesco across the road can sell the same products for half the price and probably still make a profit, I just think the cinema food prices are more about total greed on their part. I didn't have a problem with the ticket prices, they were €8 a head which is fine.

The premier club sounds good alright, Id say a lot of people will go for that.

For kids, half the thrill of the cinema is getting the popcorn and stuff there and I think the prices alienate a lot of families who probably can't afford it and therefore the kids miss out, think we'll be sticking to the xTra Vision deals for the next while ;-)

ComfyKnickers

Jason Todd wrote: »

A friend of mine works in Storm/Odeon, I told him about all the threads on Boards like this one, and he basically said that there is nothing they can do. They don't make any money on the tickets, the same as petrol stations don't make on fuel and that popcorn, drinks & sweets is the only way to make a few pound. He told me the staff often have great ideas for cinema nights like have classic film nights like Die Hard or Pulp Fiction, reducing the tickets right down and even allowing alcohol on certain nights, having Xbox or Playstation nights on the big screen at low prices but management just don't want to know. I'm not talking about the management in the cinema, I mean the people who own the chains etc.

What myself and my missus do is get a large drink and popcorn between us and get a few munchies in Dunphy's on the way! If we bring the kids, we just don't eat anything ourselves and just get them something in Dunphy's.

And Dr. Pepper... eeeeww :eek::D

Yea tell me about it, my youngest thought it was coke so we waited for her reaction when she took her first gulp, twas nearly worth the €3.00 just to see her face!!!

Bringthethunder

There is no way there just making money off the food and nothing or very little off the tickets. Why operate a cinema and just open a sweet shop so?

sandin

Bringthethunder wrote: »

There is no way there just making money off the food and nothing or very little off the tickets. Why operate a cinema and just open a sweet shop so?

There's even a book on this called something along the lines of "why popcorn costs so much at the movies and other pricing questions" far from being a jokey book it is a superb book on economics and how relatively speaking, the popcorn is good value!!!

The film distributor takes 80-90% of the ticket price as if cinemas had to simply pay for 3 weeks of shows the number of shows would be restricted and there would be different prices depending on which film you see - a mega buck 3d film would probably cost €20+ per ticket and a regular low budget €5.

On popcorn / sweets - think of it - the "shop" is only busy for about an hour a day, but thye still must have the machines and the staff to run it - yes, it is a captive audience, but many people WANT warm popcorn and cold drinks and in order to provide it the cinema must charge quite a high price to make it worth their while.

Here's a link to the book - for the business/economic heads its a great read, but for others it would probably be quite boring as it does go quite deep into economic reasoning http://www.springer.com/economics/book/978-0-387-76999-8

TrustedApple

Well i think its very overpriced in waterford

Was in the IMC in thurles there to see the new spider man there during the week

It cost €18 euros for 2 3D tickets, 2 3D glasses, 2 Large bottles of water and a large popcorn

You be in look to get 1 ticket popcorn and water for €20 in storm

So i wonder why they are charging so much in waterford when in thurles is crazy cheap

Student tickets are only like €5 euros for all films

Bringthethunder

sandin wrote: »

There's even a book on this called something along the lines of "why popcorn costs so much at the movies and other pricing questions" far from being a jokey book it is a superb book on economics and how relatively speaking, the popcorn is good value!!!

The film distributor takes 80-90% of the ticket price as if cinemas had to simply pay for 3 weeks of shows the number of shows would be restricted and there would be different prices depending on which film you see - a mega buck 3d film would probably cost €20+ per ticket and a regular low budget €5.

On popcorn / sweets - think of it - the "shop" is only busy for about an hour a day, but thye still must have the machines and the staff to run it - yes, it is a captive audience, but many people WANT warm popcorn and cold drinks and in order to provide it the cinema must charge quite a high price to make it worth their while.

Here's a link to the book - for the business/economic heads its a great read, but for others it would probably be quite boring as it does go quite deep into economic reasoning http://www.springer.com/economics/book/978-0-387-76999-8

That book looks a lot like the book "Freakanomics", which is well worth a read also. I knew a guy once who worked in the old cinema and he said that the cinema more or less rent the film from the film company and its up to them what to charge

sandin

Bringthethunder wrote: »

That book looks a lot like the book "Freakanomics", which is well worth a read also. I knew a guy once who worked in the old cinema and he said that the cinema more or less rent the film from the film company and its up to them what to charge

Many years ago that was the case, but also once you were outside Dublin city centre, you'd be waiting 2-3 months before the top films were available in country cinemas.

Similarly when video started - you bought the videos and rented them out at whatever you wanted and it was up to you to make money - nowadays dvd rental stores rent the dvd's themselves and the majority are returned after 30 days (example) and just a few kept and purchased at a reduced fee. Hence someone like xtravision has 100+ copies of a new release for 1st 4 weeks and then suddenly they all disapear.

As for cinema pricing - Waterford storm is now part of Odeon/UCI and have plenty of off peak specials. Check their website for all details, but if you want to make it a morning movie, (its summer holiday time) its something like €5 per person (kids&adults)

b0ardsUser

Bringthethunder wrote: »

There is no way there just making money off the food and nothing or very little off the tickets. Why operate a cinema and just open a sweet shop so?

Cinemas make hardly anything off ticket prices, and whether they are a monopoly or not, the prices are set and do not fluctuate based on the amount of other cinemas in the area, it's really easy to say its expensive because they have a monopoly, but I can tell you for a fact that if there were 3 other cinemas in the county the prices would be the exact same.

It's also worth being aware that a cinema has high operating costs (security, electricity staff, insurance etc etc etc)

As Mitchkoobski mentioned there's countless threads about it, I can't see it changing in the future, its easy to bitch and moan about it, its not an uncommon thing on this forum,

I recently moved to England and its much more expensive here,

Download the film, get Netflix, go to Xtravision, if you want to see the film you go pay for it, no-one is forcing you to buy the food by the way........

ROCKMAN

Use to do the popcorn thing ,now bring my own soft drinks and bribe the kids with McDonalds after ,, alot cheaper....

sandin

ROCKMAN wrote: »

Use to do the popcorn thing ,now bring my own soft drinks and bribe the kids with McDonalds after ,, alot cheaper....

That's the best way to do it, but I'd only go every few months and want the full experience, as its a night out. Yep, its about €40, but compare that to going for a meal and its good value, compare to staying at home and watching a dvd and its expensive, but we like to treat ourselves every now and then and treats should be fun.

Tess Tickle

A large tub of popcorn is 1200 calories!!! A large coke is 330 cals.Average calory requirement of a 12 year old is 1800 to 2000 per day.
Another good reason not to buy it.

abouttobebanned

Off to the health and nutrition forum with ya.

MitchKoobski

Tess Tickle wrote: »

A large tub of popcorn is 1200 calories!!! A large coke is 330 cals.Average calory requirement of a 12 year old is 1800 to 2000 per day.
Another good reason not to buy it.

TrustedApple

Tess Tickle wrote: »

A large tub of popcorn is 1200 calories!!! A large coke is 330 cals.Average calory requirement of a 12 year old is 1800 to 2000 per day.
Another good reason not to buy it.

What has this got to do with the price of a cinema ticket ???

ziedth

Credit where it's due they are showing the first two Batman movies for the lead up to The Dark Knight Rises. It's something a bit original anyway.

MitchKoobski

Ran in to get my tickets when I found out they were showing them.

nkay1985

ziedth wrote: »

Credit where it's due they are showing the first two Batman movies for the lead up to The Dark Knight Rises. It's something a bit original anyway.

Yeah I've tickets booked already. Only €3 each!

dazftw

Its so expensive cause they have zero competition in the city.