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Pandemic Impact: Bollywood needs to rethink on its pricing strategy; High rates = low revenue, low footfalls
Are the high ticket rates a major reason for the audience to not get back to the cinema halls in big numbers for mid sized films? Pinkvilla debates
A friend of mine opened a restaurant in Andheri and invited me at the precursor ceremony to try the wide variety of food – from Indian to Chinese, Italian and Fast Food. I cherished the meal and months later, took my family for dinner at the same place. They enjoyed their meal to start with but were taken aback by the bill amount. Their reaction on leaving the place was exactly the reason why the friend had to shut down the restaurant exactly a year after the launch.
“The food was good, but how different was it from what we order at home from a local restaurant? It wasn’t value for money,” my father said. The friend took this failure to heart, and on learning his lessons, renovated the place and reopened it at a subsidized rate. And guess what? The rise in revenue aside, there was a massive spike in the footfalls too, which translated into the word that the restaurant has good food to offer with a highly efficient staff spread faster than ever before. Just reworking the pricing strategy did wonders for him as today, he sits down to merely count his profit every month.
Over the last 10 years, there has been a massive fall in the footfalls i.e. number of people stepping out to watch a feature film on the big screen. While there is proven evidence that footfalls have gone down massively, the industry window dresses the scenario by showcasing the rise in revenue year by year.
Himesh Mankad
The same case study applies to the cinema business too. Over the last 10 years, there has been a massive fall in the footfalls i.e. number of people stepping out to watch a feature film on the big screen. While there is proven evidence that footfalls have gone down massively, the industry window dresses the scenario by showcasing the rise in revenue year by year. The most watched film last decade is Dangal, which raked in Rs 380 crore with approx. footfalls of 3.70 crore. This is followed by Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which sold about 3.50 crore tickets with collections of Rs 320 crore. The two films arrived in 2016 and 2015 respectively, and ever since then, there has been a downward slide as far as footfalls are concerned. Why? High ticket rates.
Just before the pandemic, we were in an era where films with barely 1 crore footfalls raked in Rs 100 crore at the box-office, and this was a sign of danger as the numbers merely window dressed the reality of a stark fall in cinema going audience. The bubble was waiting to be busted sooner or later, and now, with the world taken over by the Covid-19 pandemic, the process has just fastened up. While one expected multiplex chains to reduce the ticket rates to cultivate the cine-going habits again, they were back to the old ways of doing business with premium pricing for even non-event films. The prime time shows on Friday and Saturday in the national chains fall in the bracket of 5 pm to 11 pm, and at most places of metros, the ticket prices ranged from Rs 300 to 1100 for mid-sized films like Satyameva Jayate 2, Antim, Tadap and Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui.
The prime time shows on Friday and Saturday in the national chains fall in the bracket of 5 pm to 11 pm, and at most places of metros, the ticket prices ranged from Rs 300 to 1100 for mid-sized films like Satyameva Jayate 2, Antim,
Himesh Mankad
Would you as a viewer want to splurge so much on a mid-sized film, more so, when you know that it’s going to premiere on the digital world in a matter of 28 days? Wouldn’t you as a viewer rather save up for a big budget event film, which will opt for pricing strategy that’s much higher than the mid-sized films? These are the factors which the ones in the industry – right from producers to distributors and exhibitors need to take into account. There is an urgent need to rework on pricing strategy, as high prices would just result in the death of mid-sized films on the big screen, and opening of a film like Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui featuring someone as popular as Ayushmann Khurrana is a testimony to the same.
One expects the biz of multiplex films to rise over the weekend due to audience word of mouth. But the question here is – Do we have enough audience watching the film in the first place? If there’s no audience, how would there be something called ‘word of mouth’. It’s time to switch our focus for the time being from revenues to footfalls. It’s time to cultivate the habit of bringing people back to the halls – and we as Indians are always attracted by low prices to explore and experiment. Yes, a film like Sooryavanshi, Spiderman and 83’ warrant premium pricing, but the others deserve to be capped at Rs 250 – 275 rupees in the premium shows to bring in the audiences. One must also realize, higher the footfalls, higher the chances of getting more sales at the FnB counters. Lower prices resulting in losses for cinema owners is nothing but a myth at this point of time. The South industry is back on it's feet - why? Because the ticket rates are much within the reach of audiences. It's not the fear of virus that's keeping the people away from the cinema halls (of course, it's one of the factors), but it's rather the fear of spending too that has had an impact on cinema going culture.
It’s time to switch our focus for the time being from revenues to footfalls. It’s time to cultivate the habit of bringing people back to the halls – and we as Indians are always attracted by low prices to explore and experiment.
Himesh Mankad
The pandemic has changed the spending habits of audiences, and with a stark competition from early premieres on OTT, the urgency factor of watching film on the big screen too has taken the back seat. It’s just a matter of months before one can watch the film with the entire family for nearly 1/10 the amount at home. Suggested pricing for event, big, mid-sized and small budget films at prime time shows in metros. The pricing at multiplexes of tier 2 centers should be even lower:
ALSO READ: Mirroring The Industry: Don’t we miss the passion of 1990s and 2000s in film marketing these days?
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