How many of us will pay $25 for a movie ticket?
As cinemas seek to reposition themselves as a luxury experience, we must grapple with trade-offs.
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In Singapore cinemas, premium seating – with plush leather recliner seats and built-in perks for food and drink – has become more commonplace.
PHOTO: GENSLER
Samer Elhajjar
Over the past fortnight, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has pulled crowds into IMAX and premium halls, and even revived 35mm film screenings at Shaw Lido, the only cinema in South-east Asia to offer them. Yet for other well-received releases this season, from the horror hit Obsession to the Teochew family drama Dear You, most of us were perfectly content with a standard hall. That gap in behaviour tells us where cinema is heading.
Take a look at cinema ticket prices today and you might get a shock. In Singapore, premium seating – with plush leather recliner seats and built-in perks for food and drink – has become more commonplace, costing between $25 and $50 per ticket. Watching movies used to be a casual mass-market experience, which has now been repositioned as a luxurious lifestyle product.
