Comment by rhplus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rhplus | Hacker News Reader

2. Ticket prices are too high. People have always made that complaint, but historically the movies have been cheap compared to concerts, major league sports and restaurants.

I had to check this claim, because inflation and purchasing power can fog people's memories. Using average U.S. ticket prices[1] adjusted to 2010 dollars[2], I get the following:

Year | Price | 2010 price adj. w/CPI

---------------------------------

2010 | 7.89 | 7.89

2005 | 6.41 | 7.15

2000 | 5.39 | 6.83

1995 | 4.35 | 6.22

1990 | 4.22 | 7.04

1985 | 3.55 | 7.19

1980 | 2.69 | 7.12

1975 | 2.03 | 8.23

1971 | 1.65 | 8.88

1967 | 1.22 | 7.96

1963 | 0.86 | 6.13

1958 | 0.68 | 5.13

1954 | 0.49 | 3.97

1948 | 0.36 | 3.26

Assuming my calculations are fair and correct, it appears that movie ticket prices quickly outpaced inflation until the late 60s, saw a peak in the 70s and then began a steady decline until the mid 90s. Since then they've been on a march upwards again.

So prices aren't historically high - that honor goes to the 1970s. And compared to sports events and concerts...?! I don't have the data, but I'd bet tickets for those have risen even faster, both of which, incidentally, suffer from the same competition movies do: high quality home theater setups and internet streaming. Which of course is the real problem - ticket prices need to drop against inflation, because entertain distribution options are not the same in 2011 as they were in 1971. The movie theater or concert venue does not have a monopoly on high definition entertainment any more.

Sources:

[1] http://www.natoonline.org/statisticstickets.htm

[2] http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

7.89 for movies? What? Where? I'm guessing this data is skewed by the low prices of rural and suburban centers that are underpopulated. Here in the urban world where most of the population lives, movies start at 11 or 12 dollars and then there's a 3D surcharge of a couple bucks. When my gf and go to the movies here in Chicago its about 30 dollars before any snacks. Toss in a few bucks parking too. Oh, want to order online? That's another two dollars per ticket.

At the end of the day, Hollywood is asking us to drop 30-40 bucks to see yet another disposable experience. On the value vs cost curve, Hollywood is losing.

Meanwhile, Netflix streams to all my computers and my Boxee. Vudu too. I think I can wait a few months until its on Vudu or On-Demand for a fraction of that price. Even then its still not a compelling experience. I'm in my 30s. Where are the Scorsece's, Allen's, Spielberg's, and Coppola's of my generation? I'm not sure, but they aren't getting work in mainstream Hollywood.

The prices he lists are “…adjusted to 2010 dollars…” based on the linked calculator.

EDIT: Please ignore this comment. See reply below. Sorry for missing the point here.

2010 was last year (Ok, it will be the year before last in a couple of days, but...), inflation is not sufficient to effect it that much when compared with this year.

Like the grand-parent, this does not fit with my experience. When I got to a new release I usually pay around $13 per person at a decent theater in Las Vegas, and up to $18 per person for Imax 3D.

But the other thing that may skew the results is budget or "dollar" theaters that show older releases. I frequently take my kids to those for around $2 per ticket.

I just realized that I misread the comment, and for that I apologize; I totally missed the boat with my reply.

I actually agree that the average ticket price is way below what I'm used to paying here in Los Angeles. At the same time, I suppose that's the point, to take into account both the high and low ends of the pricing spectrum.

That said, I'd gladly pay $7–8 for a movie!

The price in 2010 in 2010 dollars is listed as $7.89. drzaiusapelord isn't complaining about previous years.

7.89 for movies? What? Where? I'm guessing this data is skewed by the low prices of rural and suburban centers that are underpopulated. Here in the urban world where most of the population lives, movies start at 11 or 12 dollars and then there's a 3D surcharge of a couple bucks.

They seem to be calculated by taking the box office takings[1] and dividing it by the number of admissions[2].

I suspect the big influence on that price is "family" tickets and children's tickets and other concession tickets which push the average price down.

[1] http://www.natoonline.org/statisticsboxoffice.htm

[2] http://www.natoonline.org/statisticsadmissions.htm

It's pretty common for me to pay 7.50 in Lansing MI (almost 500,000 in the metro area). That's mostly because I always get a student discount (hooray college town where they assume everyone under 30 is a student).

My sister works at a movie theater, and she gets so annoyed because everybody under 30 wants to take advantage of the student discount..

It works if it's crowded, but if not, she'll ask for your ID :)

Prices at the 12 screen theater in Ames, Iowa (college town of 50k people):

Senior Monday - 4.75

Matinee, Child, Senior - 5.75

Adult Evening - 7.50

Adult Weekend Evening - 8.00

3D - add 2.50

Taking your "average ticket prices" data from the National Association of Theatre Owners is a bit disingenuous. I imagine they're averaging over time (rather than per-theatre-attendee or something), which would tend to favor the cheaper, daytime prices. When people go to the movies it's usually after work and on the weekends when ticket prices are $10+. I've seen prices well above $10 everywhere from small town Iowa to downtown Chicago and Minneapolis and they've definitely been higher in the last 5 years.

Add to that the cost of "renting" 3D glasses (a new phenomenon) and the higher ticket price for the "IMAX Experience" (not necessarily new, but much more widespread lately) and your average ticket price is definitely higher than it was historically.

The "average" is the mean of gross revenue ($10.6 billion for 2010) over audience numbers for the year (1.4 billion). This would include both 2D and 3D movies, plus matinee and child ticket prices. It's not clear if they include 3D glasses "rental", but my main assumption is that NATO has always calculated the average this way and they are always truthful with their totals (could be a big assumption).

I agree that a mean loses a lot of information about how ticket prices are distributed. It would be very interesting to see how these numbers trend over time for various percentiles - 5th for cheapo tickets, 50th for median, 95th for high end...

Sources:

http://www.natoonline.org/statisticsadmissions.htm

http://www.natoonline.org/statisticsboxoffice.htm

"both of which, incidentally, suffer from the same competition movies do: high quality home theater setups and internet streaming."

Live events shouldn't be so easily compared to movies and home entertainment. While you can wait for a movie to come to DVD for a similar experience, it's not the same for a live event. Watching a concert on YouTube isn't nearly as much fun as going to watch it live. Going to a live event is an experience.

Concerts maybe not, but watching sporting events at home can usually be a better view and watching experience. Yes, the atmosphere of a home game for a passionate fan base cannot be replicated, but for casual fans who just want to watch the game in comfort, HD TV, comfy couches, and regularly priced food and drink is an attractive alternative compared to going to the stadium.

You'd think so, but you have no idea just how much you miss by watching TV. At a football or soccer game, you can follow all 22 players at once, not just the half dozen around the ball. And a baseball game in the summer is as much a warm day spent outside with friends as it is a sporting event. Also you get to see more of the game, since you see how the fielders are positioning themselves and how the base runners are positioned to possibly steal a base, whereas TV just focuses on the batter and pitcher.

Having been to football and baseball games, I do have an idea of just how much I miss. I prefer watching on tv (at least for football, baseball is more fun in person because I find it boring as hell but at least in person I'm there with friends). Obviously this is just personal opinion, but I think there are probably a lot of people who don't care about what everyone is doing and therefore the TV views are more than adequate.

Media entertainment is one of those areas where inflation is hard to calculate, the price of watching a movie at home has been deflating from impossible, to $1000 VCRs, to $8 Netflix on a machine you have anyway.

When I want to go to the theater near me (Metreon in SF, local mall's theater in NY), the price you cite is a little over half of what I would have to pay for a single ticket. Its usually closer to $11-$12. And thats without imax or 3d.

Costs me $13 in NYC, $15 if I order tickets online. Rarely worth it.

wow, they charge you a fee for buying the tickets online? Ridiculous...

The chain theaters tend to use Movietickets or Fandango for online & phone ticketing, and both charge an extra dollar or two per ticket.

Makes me sick every time to pay it too, I've gone to a lot less opening weekends where I would have to reserve online to make sure I could get a ticket.

Here in Germany, tickets usually cost around 8 Euro now (10.36 USD) ...

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