While many of Vancouver’s neighbourhood cinemas are fighting for survival, local cinema heavyweight Cineplex Entertainment doesn’t share small operators’ perception that business is tougher now than it was five years ago.
“I wouldn’t say it’s tougher,” said Kyle Moffatt, director of communications for the Toronto-based cinema company.
Moffatt said that what’s changed is that consumers have gained more options for “what they can do with their dollar.”
But he said that Cineplex has also diversified its offerings over the past few years, introducing the Metropolitan Opera on the big screen and establishing VIP cinemas, such as SilverCity Coquitlam and VIP Cinemas, where patrons can have a meal and a drink in a lounge before catching a movie.
Asked whether cinemas require that kind of diversification to stay profitable, Moffat said, “I wouldn’t say that [the market] requires it, but it certainly helps.”
He added, “As long as the studios are continuing to pump out great movies and giving people a reason to come and see them, then they will [come].”
Moffatt wasn’t immediately able to provide attendance statistics for B.C. in 2011, but he said that for the whole of Canada, the company’s attendance dropped four million guests last year. However, he said some of that can be attributed to Avatar driving up attendance the previous year.
“When there’s a movie that’s gangbusters like Avatar, then of course it’s going to impact attendance,” he said. “And then the following year when you don’t have one, you’re going to see a bit of an impact.”
See this week’s edition of Business in Vancouver for how local small cinemas are struggling with a broken business model.
