Cinema Day can drive movie ticket sales, but strategy unviable in long term

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Dwindling footfalls in recent years, in part due to steep ticket prices, have prompted theatre chains to announce a string of Cinema Day-like occasions to lure audiences with tickets priced as low as ₹99. Initiatives like this may have spurred a jump in footfalls on those special days, but such one-off occasions may not be enough for theatre chains to sustain demand, experts said.

The low-priced tickets have benefited movies such as Article 370, Mr & Mrs Mahi, Yudhra and others that were unlikely to see similar traction at regular rates, but trade experts emphasize that the move, aimed at stimulating demand via a price incentive, doesn’t lead to a rise in footfalls in the long term. The films almost always fizzle out the day after the incentive and only manage to make a short-lived event out of an otherwise unexciting film. Moreover, the move runs the risk of losing its charm if adopted too frequently.

“In the current scenario when streaming offers a plethora of options, non-event films have struggled to open at the box office, and the share of big-ticket blockbusters continues to go up. However, Cinema Day creates a mini-event of its own where the pitch is the ticket price ( ₹99) and not the title (and its credentials) itself. All titles running, including holdover releases, become a part of this collective event," media consulting firm Ormax said in a blogpost recently.

It added that Cinema Days can provide spikes through event-ization but they are not habit-forming as an idea and hence hold limited strategic value. This limits their potential towards the growth of the Hindi box office, both in the short and long run. This year, the National Cinema Day was celebrated on 20 September,