Cinematics Followup

Following on from yesterday’s post about this year’s Cinema viewings, a couple of things were explained to me outside of D4D™ about how Cineworld make their money on Unlimited Tickets.

The main profit-engine – and one I’d never even thought about – is based on attendance. As I understand it, Cineworld pay [whichever movie distributor] based on a percentage of gross ticket sales per week. However, Unlimited card-holders mean there are bums-on-seats that never show up as ticket sales.  That £16 per month is pure gravy for Cineworld, and significantly reduces the amount they have to pay to movie distributors.

Apparently, a Cineworld cinema only needs to have 1,000 Unlimited card-holders to break even for the year. It’s that cost-effective.

Then there’s the secondary profit-engines…

1. They get customer data – linked to specific customers –  of viewing preferences, linked sales, attendance etc. That’s useful for many many reasons
2. The extras (as I’d always suspected) – even with the discount from the ticket, you’re still paying much more than you would anywhere else for drinks etc.

There’s probably others as well, but they’re the main ones. It gives an interesting perspective on business etc.