Taking your own food/drink to cinema

lanavdt

For us, it depends on if we've planned to go or not. If my oh picks me up after work and suggests going to the cinema, we buy stuff there. He gets the tickets and I get the food. My bill is always more than his. If it's planned, we buy stuff in advance, a bottle juice, bag of sweets and then we go halves on the tickets.

Last time we were in, there was a special offer on: sharer combo, 2 medium drinks and a medium popcorn for only £10.50. To buy them seperately (I'm sad and like to work these things out) it was £10.70. Huge bargain or what? :rotfl:

martyp

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

You do realise that at this time, it's exceptionally selfish to not purchase food in the cinema? Very little, if any of the ticket price will go to the cinema - most/all of their profit is made from additional merchandise such as food and drink.

That's the same situation as petrol stations isn't it? Where the service that you associate them with most (.e.g fuel) is the least profitable and they rely on people buying things in the shop which can cost more...

martyp

I enjoyed a film with a bottle of coke and big bag of Sainsburys basics Cinema style popcorn this week and it cost me less than £2 for refreshments when coke and popcorn at the cinema costs nearly £6.
The Sainsburys basics popcorn was really nice too, much nicer than the stuff sold in the cinema...

saver_sam

I take my own stuff now - much cheaper to go to the supermarket than buy inside-gotta save me pennies somehow. Mines a local independant cinema .

Doom_and_Gloom

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

You do realise that at this time, it's exceptionally selfish to not purchase food in the cinema? Very little, if any of the ticket price will go to the cinema - most/all of their profit is made from additional merchandise such as food and drink.

But then again, I guess you people will be the first to complain when the cinema in your hometown closes down.

What kind of example is it to set to your children when the rules clearly state "No food and drink", yet you willfully encourage them to break the rules?

We lost our cinema years ago due to Bluewater. The Showcase cinema there is now (I believe) the nearest cinema to where I live over 6 miles away! It costs £3.90 for off peak train and bus to get there (return) for 1 person (after a 30 min walk into my town centre as there isn't a reliable bus to get there :rolleyes: ) and then another £7.80 per person for a cinema ticket unless it's certain days before 4pm then its £6.50 a ticket :eek: ! So going by the chepest that's £10.40 just to get there and get a damn ticket. Oddly enough after that I rarely HAVE the money to buy food if I wished to, not that I would eat the rubbish they sell at the stupid price they do (way over 200% mark up :mad: ).

If our local cinema was still here it would most likely be less than £6.50 a ticket and I would go to the cinema more as I'd be able to afford it then (I don't even go once a month at the moment). I miss the local cinema and wish it to return as it makes this town even more lifeless than it used to be without it.

As for taking in food I do it all the time as I simply can not afford to buy their food. When we had our local one I could afford to buy a few snacks as they were more reasonably priced and I didn't need to pay for travel to get there!

PolishBigSpender

marsupial_mama wrote: »

Nonsense! If they charged the same prices as shops, people would not bother popping at the shop first and then taking stuff in. It would be much easier and more convenient to buy at the cinema. So, more people would buy ... and I am sure shops still make profit, even if they do not charge nearly £4 for a Butterkist popcorn! I am sure that if they halved their prices the amount of people buying would not just double, but maybe quadruple, binging in the same if not bigger profit (larger volumes can mean better wholesale price).

I, for one, would buy at cinema if prices were not so out of proportion!

You're not considering the impact of staffing. If you look at your average cinema, they can often run their entire catering operation with one person. If you start selling four times the volume - then they might need three times the amount of staff. More staff means more management - which pushes up costs. It's basic economics - it's often more profitable to sell less of something at a higher profit.

And of course, you're ignoring the key point - for cinemas, the catering operation is what makes money. They make nothing off films - they rely on the food and drink sales in order to make the cinema viable.

It's also called 'captive audience' - they will charge what they can get away with. With that is a restrictive policy on bringing outside food/drinks - and in my opinion, anyone caught with outside food/drink should be immediately removed from the cinema.

facingthefuture wrote: »

I take your point BUT I think people will understandably take foodstuffs in since they are being utterly ripped of by the prices. If the cinemas were not so extortionate this would not happen. I have 2 young children and taking them to the cinema is rare because it costs about £12 before food - do you really expect me to deprive them of the cinema experience because of an extortionate food pricing policy? Nope, and I don't feel guilty either.

Are they really being ripped off? You do realise that if the cinema charged a market rate for seeing films, you would be paying an incredible price to see films? Shrek 3 for instance had a budget of $160 MILLION dollars. That money has to be paid back - and it has to make a profit. Would you really visit the cinema if you had to pay over 10 pounds for the ticket? In essence, tickets are a loss leader.

Having said this, perhaps you'll feel guilty when your children are ejected from the cinema for having brought in food and drink from outside. I wouldn't want to be the parent that has to explain why they didn't follow the clearly stated rules.

omelette451

So why don't we force the film companies to have lower budgets and save money that way?

olly300

PolishBigSpender I have been to the cinema in more countries than just the UK and none of them have charged such a high mark up on food and drink even though they also had the minimum wage. Hence I had no qualms with buying food and drink in those cinemas.

However in the UK as well as paying nearly £10 a ticket I am not going to spend another £10 on food brought from the cinema when I can spend £4 getting twice as much from a Supermarket/sweet shop.

Also years ago I went into a cinema and due to electrical problems they had no food or drinks available. They actively told customers to go and buy stuff from outside and bring it in.

And I always make sure I tell any children I'm taking that eating your own food or drink in the cinema is against the rules and if we get caught we will lose the food or be ejected.

marsupial_mama

PolishBigSpender said:
You're not considering the impact of staffing. If you look at your average cinema, they can often run their entire catering operation with one person. If you start selling four times the volume - then they might need three times the amount of staff. More staff means more management - which pushes up costs. It's basic economics - it's often more profitable to sell less of something at a higher profit.

My reply:
Perhpas there would be a need for more staff, but not 4x more... have you looked recently how bored they look and how short the lines there are for food?

PolishBigSpender said:
And of course, you're ignoring the key point - for cinemas, the catering operation is what makes money. They make nothing off films - they rely on the food and drink sales in order to make the cinema viable.

My reply:
I do understand that. But again - I would buy if prices would be reasonable - this way, I can not afford it... I would buy a popcorn at £2 rather than £1 from the shop, but I refuse to pay over £4. And since it is 4 of us.....

PolishBigSpender said:
Are they really being ripped off? You do realise that if the cinema charged a market rate for seeing films, you would be paying an incredible price to see films? Shrek 3 for instance had a budget of $160 MILLION dollars. That money has to be paid back - and it has to make a profit. Would you really visit the cinema if you had to pay over 10 pounds for the ticket? In essence, tickets are a loss leader.

My reply:
Again - rubbish - fair enough that cinemas have to sustain their costs. But the film industry does not recover money from cinemagoers only - royalties on merchandise, DVDs, etc. is a great earner. You can find Shrek 3rd on bags, cups, McDonald meals, T-shirts...

And since you have brought up the example, directly from wikipedia (which I fully credit here!!!), they have recovered the budget two fold in US alone in only 12 weeks in cinemas!:

'Despite these criticisms, Shrek the Third, which opened in 4,122 North American cinemas on May 18, 2007, grossed a total of US$121,629,270 in its first weekend, the best opening weekend ever for an animated film, and third best overall. As of November 30, 2007, Shrek the Third has grossed $321 million in the United States and $473.4 million overseas, bringing its cumulative total to $794.4 million.[3] Shrek The Third was the fourth highest grossing film worldwide in 2007, only behind Spider Man 3, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. It was also the second-highest grossing movie in the United States in that year, behind Spider-Man 3. In addition, it was the highest-grossing animated movie worldwide of 2007.[4] Compared to its predecessors, the film also had an unusually short box office lifespan. Shrek the Third spent only 12 weeks in theaters, while Shrek and Shrek 2 were respectively in release for 29 and 21 weeks, respectively.'

So, yeah, they do have to recover money, but you make it sound like the film industry is solely depending on cinemas and us buying their overpriced popcorn and hotdogs....

omelette451

olly300 wrote: »

And I always make sure I tell any children I'm taking that eating your own food or drink in the cinema is against the rules and if we get caught we will lose the food or be ejected.

As Martin says, children need to be educated in terms of good MSE/consumer advice practices. I would consider teaching them how not to get ripped off by the cinema chains a moral duty for any parent.