Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Those 40 and up only account for 30% of ticket sales [1], despite being nearly 50% of the population. This is a figure I find rather shocking given that these ages include those with children and those with an abundance of time in retirement.

Another factor may be the skyrocketing costs of movie tickets. This source [2] shows that tickets went from $4.35 in 1996 to $9.16 in 2021, which exceeds the rate of inflation. Additionally, I'm not aware of any tickets to be had for $9. Tickets are exorbitantly expensive these days [3].

[1] https://www.mekkographics.com/american-moviegoers-by-age-and...

[2] https://247wallst.com/media/2021/03/29/this-is-the-price-of-...

[3] The price for one ticket to Jurassic World tonight at a theater near to me is $18.84. This is in "2D" on a standard screen.

> This is a figure I find rather shocking given that these ages include those with children

That should actually explain it.

My wife and I used to see a movie or two every weekend. Then we had kids seven years ago. I think I've been to the theater maybe four times since then (and two of those were without my wife).

That is really interesting. In my town, to see Jurassic World tomorrow (Wed) at 20:30 in the UK is £13 per adult. This includes a mostly empty cinema, a terrible seat, 10-20 minutes of adverts for viewing start time and £6 for a large pepsi max.

So minus the pepsi, it is $31.09USD for 2 adults.

Even if I reached out to my admittedly few dozen facebook family from 16-90 year old and said I sorted all them out for $1 a film. No one would go. I mean maybe 1-2 people would go but even then I'd be mind blown.

I thought UK cinema tickets actually dropped in price quite a bit recently. As a counterexample, still in a small city in the UK, Vue has seats today for 'The Rise of Gru' for £7 per seat - in a nice venue with reclining seats. And you can bring popcorn from the next-door supermarket for £2 per bag. The only downside is that you would have to watch 'The Rise of Gru'...

Hollywood is churning out Transformers, Marvel, and Fast & Furious movies by the dozen. I don’t think this really appeals to most people over a certain age.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com