The year 2011 brought in the smallest movie audience since 1995. With fewer people heading into the theaters box office revenue fell drastically compared to prior years, nearly a half a billion dollars! There are so many things that can be causing this drop in theater attendance; here is just a few that may have had an impact on this years box office.
Since 1995 average ticket prices have increased more than 80 percent! Just over the past four years we have seen them rise from an average of $6.88 to $7.96. 3-D flicks also are hurting the piggy bank by adding up to $4.00 extra on top of these ticket prices. These prices may even seem low to you depending on your location areas like New York and Los Angeles typically have much higher ticket prices. With the economic times we are going through, for a family of four to go spend the evenings at them movies may be to steep for their wallets so they are reevaluating where they view movies and go for entertainment.
Some moviegoers over 30 may be steering clear of theaters because of younger generations being noisy and bothersome in the theater. Younger boys and girls chatter, and text causing a distraction to those around them. After paying such a high price for a ticket the last thing older generations would want is for their experience to be ruined by youngsters. Who knows maybe a way to fix this issue is to have a 21 and older theater to remove this problem and allow for a text and chatter free theater experience for those who wish to have it that way.
One of the greatest reasons I see for this years box office flop is the lack of movies that one can consider a "must-see." There really were no flicks this year besides the conclusion of the Harry Potter series that gave potential audiences that feeling of missing out on something if they do not hit the theaters as soon as possible.
We all know the snacks and drinks that go hand in hand with our movie experience cost nearly pennies to make, but why is it that theaters are charging such a premium price? It is interesting to see how everything is sold in such ginormous sizes all just to justify their high inflated prices. I do not think this is a direct reason for people not attending movies but I think it fuels the fire. As a family with young children its hard to walk past this attractive stand and not allow your child to get a snack, again making you spend way more money in the theater than you should be. If I am not mistaken AMC theaters is one of the only places that actually allows you to bi-pass their snack stands by permitting theatergoers to bring their own outside snacks in. (I hope this is a fact because I know my bag is filled with goodies.) But then again nothing beats a nice bucket of movie theater popcorn drizzled with butter.....mmmmm I can smell it now.
A growing form of delivery to audiences is online services like Netflix and television video on demand. Consumers now have more than just the theater to go to to enjoy an evening with the family watching movies. How can you pass it up; its cheaper and it is all available at the click of a button. You may not get the newest release as an option to watch but their is such a large library of choices there is defiantly something that you can find to check out every night. Netflix is becoming such a popular substitution for the theater that they report that their service accounts for 30 PERCENT of all internet traffic in the evening! Now this is most defiantly creating a major issue for the box office and it is only going to get greater over time.
One final issue that I see with movie theaters is that they seem to restrict what shows on their screens to the major Hollywood blockbusters. If you look into it you will see that this year was huge for Independents, Foreign, and Documentary films. Box office reports show that one of these titles over a weekend can take the number one port in per-screen-average receipts. If this is the case why is it so hard to find local theaters with independent, foreign, and documentary flicks? Its time for movie theaters to embrace this change into an independent world and take these smaller "art movies" onto their screens and maybe over the next year they will see an increase in audiences and ticket sales.
When it comes down to it everyone loves going to see a movie on the big screen. I think it is the theaters that are really driving their audiences away. Its time for them to wake up and lower ticket prices, snack prices, and some variety so they don't loose us all to Netflix and video on demand. As of right now if they keep it up this is exactly what is going to happen.
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