This cinema has an audience, but half price/ reception that could have been permanent

According to the Fars news agency’s film reporter, according to Samfa information, on Tuesday, 198,800 people went to the cinema to see the films of Nowruz and Eid al-Fitr, as well as the remaining films from the 1401 release, across the country, of which 186,000 And 711 people were the audience of the works released in 1402.

This amount of audience is unprecedented after the stagnation of cinema in the period of the spread of the corona virus and is considered a record for cinema.

On this day, the films of the 1402 release have sold nearly 5 billion Tomans (48,835,095,000 Tomans) with half price tickets, and the rest of the reception figures are related to the remaining films from the 1401 release, Equator, Private Meeting, Bucharest, etc., so The total amount of sales reached 5 billion 213 million Tomans in 2 thousand 828 seasons.

In this one-day period, the movie “Fossil” was at the top of the sales, and the works “Three Prisons”, “Song for Two” and “World War III” are in the next ranks.

*Significant difference in audience size on half-price days

One of the remarkable points in the cinema box office in 1402 is the significant difference in the number of audiences on half-price days compared to normal days of the week, for example, last weekend, which had the largest audience on full-price days, only 153,000 people attended in two days. The audience said that this amount is very different compared to the reception of 198,000 people in one day on Tuesday.

All these data show the effect of the high price of tickets in reducing the cinema audience on normal days, an event that if it had happened with more management, we would definitely have seen more reception in cinema halls.

Was the price unmanageable?

The high price of tickets is an event that apparently is not to the satisfaction of all cinema producers. In this regard, Mohammad Kamalipour, the film producer of “Seven Spring” film shown at the 41st Fajr Film Festival, said: “The ticket price announced for the cinema in the new year is very high, and it needs to be reviewed.” The reason why the ticket price increase is wrong is that no one goes to the cinema alone, and if a family wants to go to the cinema, they will have to bear a high cost. This issue will reduce the cinema audience.

The producer of Haft Bahar Naranj continued: As a cinema producer, I am not satisfied with the increase in the ticket price, I invest money in the cinema and I expect it to return, but I am not satisfied that families feel economic pressure to see the movie. Although this action can remove the cinema from the household portfolio.

But perhaps it is also worth noting that inflation and the increase in production costs have forced cinema trustees to increase ticket prices, but the discussion is about other solutions that could be done in this regard.

Earlier, Syed Zia Hashemi said in an interview with Fars news agency: I think the government can encourage consumers to buy instead of injecting money into producers by creating support funds and create a favorable environment for cultural product producers. The cinema ticket should also be subject to such support in the same cycle; Therefore, as long as we do not take an important percentage of the price of the cinema ticket under the cover of the consumer’s cultural subsidy; Any increase in the price of cinema tickets will decrease the audience and cause damage to movies and cinema halls.

In spite of the release of several comedy films and the significant gap between the leading film and other films, the audience’s relative acceptance of films in various genres in this release season has been interesting.

* Unfair chances in box office competition

Maybe if you visit the Semfa website today or follow the news of cinema ticket sales, you will realize that there is still a significant difference between the works in the sales ranking.

In his speech, Edwin Khachikian, the director of “Babasibilo” film, said: Eid al-Fitr screening is one of the best times for movie screenings, and this year many films were eager to be screened in this time frame. Subsequently, I am also very satisfied that my film was released at this time, but my sadness is due to the unfavorable conditions and the unreasonable screenings that were assigned to our film.

He continued: I dare to say that 80% of the screenings that were allocated to the movie “Baba Sibilo” are screenings that no one goes to the cinema at that time. In one of Tehran’s campuses, our film has only one screening; 13 and 20 minutes. Which family takes their child by the hand and brings them to the cinema at 13:20? While in the same campus, 16 screenings have been allocated to another film! There is nothing wrong with it. Of course, a film that is welcomed by the audience can have more screenings, but it is appropriate to consider a reasonable number of screenings for other films as well. Cinema directors, theater trade union council and cinema organization should think about dividing the screenings fairly. This situation is really far from justice for a film that is produced by the private sector.

*last word

The duty of the cinema organization and other cinema trustees is to provide the conditions for the seventh art to move forward and to remove the obstacles on its way, certainly one of the most important challenges of cinema and any other art in general is their audience, an audience that, if not, the life of art will be endangered. Therefore, in order to preserve the cinema, the path of its audience must be paved.

One of the events that can make this path uneven and drive the audience away from the cinema is the ticket price and its increase, which happened a while ago in Iranian cinema so that the high capacity of the audience is only on half-price days; It is not far from the mind that in the control and management of the ticket price, the high reception of the audience happens on Tuesdays and all days of the week.

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