Prague, Jan 13 (CTK) – Czech cinemas attracted 14 million visitors in 2016, the highest number since 2010 with 13.5 million people, and the sales at 1.8 billion crowns also beat the previous record of 1.49 billion crowns in 2010, daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) wrote on Friday.
The paper writes that cinemas and distributors agree that this was mainly thanks to the good economic situation of the country with a population of 10.5 million and an attractive offer of films for children, comics blockbusters as well as “strong” Czech films.
HN writes that one reason of more people visiting cinemas is their bigger number. Last year, there were more than 700 of them, including 29 multiplex cinemas with more than two rooms.
The number of both cinema formats – multiplexes and small cinemas – will probably continue growing unlike in 1990-2000, when more than 1000 cinemas were closed, HN writes.
“Further cinemas are digitised and restored in smaller towns as well. The number of genre and national cinematography festivals has been growing,” Jaroslav Pecka, secretary of the Union of Film Distributors, told HN.
He said this is largely possible thanks to support from EU funds and the culture ministry.
HN writes that the higher number of cinema visitors is also due to the fact that people under 25 start to take interest in going to cinema in spite of the wide-spread downloading of films from the Internet and the world-used paid services with an attractive video content.
Thanks to higher sales, the distributors plan bigger investments, for instance, in comfort in screening rooms and a better sound, HN writes.
Jan Bradac, head of Falcon, the largest distribution company, and director of the Cinestar cinema network, told HN Cinestar may open new cinemas in shopping and multifunction centres reacting to developers’ demand.
The cinema operators say the good consumer sentiment in the country does not only raise ticket sales, but also the sales of complementary services, such as refreshments, HN writes.
It writes that firms’ interest in private screenings is also growing.
HN writes that the outlook for the years to come is not bad either, but that ticket prices will probably go up because digital screening is more costly than the analogue and the service life of the needed equipment is shorter.
Distributors say the costs of film production are also rising and that they may be projected in ticket prices as well.
Now, the average ticket price is about 128 crowns.
