It’s National Cinema Day this Saturday in the UK as hundreds of cinemas across the country participate to provide affordable places for cinephiles to get stuck into a late summer blockbuster.
The return of National Cinema Day will see more than 630 venues take part in a scheme to offer cinema tickets to the public from as little as £4 (€4.75).
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All of the UK’s major cinema chains are taking part in the scheme including Vue, ODEON, and Cineworld, as well as a host of smaller independent chains such as Curzon, Reel, and HOME.
The offer means people can take in all the late summer flicks that have hit the UK’s screens, from the satirical music-biopic Kneecap, the surprisingly good sequel Alien: Romulus, to the damp squib of Borderlands. There’s also the mega blockbusters Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine to sate the rest.
National Cinema Day was first developed in 2022 by Cinema First, with the support of the Film Distributors’ Association and the UK Cinema Association. After just a single week of promotion, there were over 1.46 million tickets sold for the reduced fare, triple the usual daily numbers.
For its second year in 2023, admissions increased by 6% to reach 1.56 million creating £5.2 million (€6.2 million) for the UK box office.
“National Cinema Day is fast becoming a Great British cultural event, sharing the joy and sociability of cinema across the nation. This year we have more support than ever, allowing us to show a fantastically wide choice of films at amazing value. Every year this event has got bigger, with more and more people sharing their love of cinema. We know that 2024 will be the best yet,” said Iain Jacob, Chair of Cinema First.
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It’s an idea familiar across Europe. Started in 1985, France has had its annual Fête du Cinéma. In 2024, the event ran from 30 June to 3 July with 6,000 cinemas taking part and offering €5 tickets.
France’s National Federation of Cinemas (FNFC) has run the event since 1985, expanding from a single day event in 1992 to the multi-day extravaganza. After ticket prices increased to €4 in 2019, the 2024 edition has seen a further increase to screenings costing €5.
Despite the price increase, it was the most popular event on record with 4.6 million tickets sold to French cinephiles.
In Germany earlier this year, plans were announced for a nationwide cinema subscription model. Germany’s Federal Film Board (FFA) announced a new scheme where cinephiles can take as many visits to the cinema as they like all for a monthly fee.
The Cinifinity project is set to launch across Germany for just €12.50 a month – a steal considering the average cinema ticket in Germany was €9.71 in 2023.
Currently, more than 100 cinema complexes have signed up to the scheme - although it remains unclear just how widespread the availability of the Cinifinity project will be. The FFA has predicted that the scheme should increase cinema visitor numbers by between 10-20%.
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