The average ticket price at theaters in the U.S. and Canada in 2010 was $7.89, up 5% from $7.50 in 2009, so says the National Assn. of Theatre Owners. That $7.89 figure is -- Let's say? a joke? It is the average price including children prices, matinee prices, senior discount prices, prices in small little towns. The price an ordinary adult is asked to pay is nearly twice that figure in cities like Washington, New York and L.A.
The LA Times reports -- "One AMC Theatres location in New York last summer raised eyebrows when it was selling $20 tickets for Imax 3-D screenings of the DreamWorks Animation movie Shrek Forever After."
Twenty bucks to see a movie? For one person?!
Maybe 3-D is the movie industry answer to Netflix? High movie ticket prices help the growth of Netflix and is choking movie attendance. 2010 attendance was down 5.3% compared from 2009. This is not because of the quality of the movies. 2010 movies were no worse than 2009 movies. As quiet as it is kept, the overall quality of movies has not changed in the last fifty years. The ticket price to see a movie has.
In the past, people went to the movies for all kinds of reasons, to see all kinds of films, to spend a moment away from their lives, to take an afternoon break, to have a cheap date. Today, sky high ticket prices are keeping people away from the movies theaters.