Movies: Ticket + Concession Prices…. a few thoughts…

Almost $5 for a $1 box of candy? If they would reduce that to $3 a box I might consider buying from the movie theater – at $2 a box it would be a no-brainer… at $5 though, I’m either going without or taking one from home.

$5.25 for a small popcorn with about $0.25 of ingredients? My wife ALWAYS buys a small popcorn – she must have popcorn for movies, even at home. Personally, I can’t stand popcorn or the smell of that rancid fat – so their $5 for $0.25 of popcorn is profit-a-plenty. Do I object to paying more than $5 for such a ridiculously small amount of product – yes. Do I understand her association with movies + popcorn. Again, Yes. So the gets the popcorn and the theater makes the profit.

So are we being ripped off? It feels like we are… most definitely.

What would I rather they did? Well, I can’t speak for the economics – but there is a price where I would buy my candy at the theater without a thought – that price is $2 a box. Why $2? At that price, it’s just $1 more than I can get the same box of candy at Walmart, King Soopers or even our local market: Hays Market (ok – their regular price is $1.25 – but they’re locally owned and you expect it to be a little more than the big-box stores).

I’d rather they raised the ticket price by a dollar and cut the concession prices – it would make the whole experience less of a price-gouge in my opinion.

As for the whole movie experience – I find fewer and fewer movies where I just MUST see the release for the first time at the theater – the advent of big-screen tvs + affordable surround systems must be hurting movie theaters big-time.

My thoughts are that theaters had better re-invent themselves or come up with some idea of how to revenue themselves without price-gouging, or they’re going the way of the dinosaur.

The news has already hit that Paramount (and possibly other movie studios) are no going to release to streaming only 2 weeks after the theater release. That will make the theater window of opportunity even smaller (although there is some revenue share from streaming I heard). If their reaction is to increase prices of tickets or concessions or both, I predict that they’ll die even faster.