When did cheap nights become so expensive.

Yes it used to be but that was many decades ago. Regional theatre was cheap then too.

My local Vue is £4.99 a ticket and I can get two tickets for £4.99 on a Tuesday or Wednesday with Meerkat. The car park is free after 6pm. I take my own snacks in and a travel mug of Yorkshire tea.

No way would I pay the prices that cinemas charge for snacks and drinks.

Some 'packaged' bank accounts do cinema tickets as an option. Wouldn't be worth the fee for that alone but if you have one for something else such as travel or breakdown cover, it could be worth looking for one that offers cinema as an add on.

Fish and chips here is £12 per meal though we do tend to share, our local pub lets you eat inside (they don't serve food) so it's £20 for 2 beers and sharing a fish and chips, I think that's reasonable myself. Parking is free at many cinemas and I've never bought snacks in my life, I don't need to eat constantly!

Meal for two and a bottle of wine for £23. That is definitely an inexpensive treat!

Cinema has always been that range of prices.

The fish and chips is cheap. Around here it's at least 20 pp without drinks.

Cinema was £6 many years ago, in fact it was £9 in London when I was young (hint I'm not now!) it's £3.50 for a coffee from coffee shops anyway.

Our local cinema is £5.99 thankfully (Vue)

Yes - we rarely went to see a film in the 70s/80s. The Saturday morning kids' club was peanuts to get into, though - a place for parents to dump the children while they went shopping - the programme was all crappy Children's Film Foundation stuff😁

Cinema has never been a cheap night out really, we always go on meerkat Tuesday/wednesday. I've been known to buy a cheap travel insurance policy to sign up to that for a year!

If you know anyone who has sky cinema subscription they can get free cinema tickets twice a month for Vue....they might not want to use them!

It’s closer to £30 for 2 at my local Odeon

When I was little in the 70s/80s cinema was absolutely not a cheap treat for us. I could count on one hand the number of times I went to the cinema before I was 16 (Snow White, ET, Star Trek The Voyage Home, Basil the Great Mouse Detective, Dead Poets Society). We absolutely would not have been bought sweets in the cinema, we got them from the sweet shop.

We did have fish and chips every Saturday lunch time after swimming though so that must have been relatively cheaper. The family as a whole almost never had wine.

Cinema: Definitely lose the sweets and coffee - that will bring you down to £14. If more than one of you going, you can divide the parking cost to get your per person figure lower. Look for cheap advance booking deals - our Vue sometimes does any seat for £4.99 (including VIP seats).

Chippy and wine - £23 doesn't sound that bad for two people. You'd pay that each in a restaurant. One way I keep the cost down of a chippy is to order one large chips to share with DH rather than two small chips - the large is enough for two if you are having fish or whatever as well.

The prices for almost everything have gone up. Those prices are standard / low priced. You might need to adjust your expectations.

Well buying snacks at the cinema has always been a complete rip off.

I do cringe at recent ticket prices, but if you use some sort of inflation adjustment calculator it has probably always been the same. But out brains can't think of inflation in the same way.

There are days of the week when it is cheaper, but obviously can be a pain to jump through hoops to get to the cheap ticket.

I think both of the examples describe in the OP sound very reasonable indeed, actually.

You are not wrong, it is incredibly easy now to spend twice what you were expecting on what would have been a cheap trip out.

I always recommend Vue cinemas (£5 or £6 any show any day) and Cineworld has a good family deal if you are two adults and two children, as the adult get child price tickets. Parking is usually free in both these cinemas and we are perfectly happy to bring our own snacks.

What I will say is some things have gone up more than others - the other day we got a very good selection of sushi for less than the price of a KFC.

It’s not the same though is it? Going to the cinema is an event - you focus on the film (no bloody phones) it’s immersive it’s an evening out. I always remember the films I saw at the cinema far more. Then your teens actually chat to you about the film in the lovely bar at the cinema afterwards. Did it cost loads? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes.

Where are you going to the cinema for £9?! That’s a bloody bargain. Last time I went it was £17.65!

I don't think fish and chips and a bottle of wine for two at £23 is extortionate, but the cinema has never been cheap unless you have a monthly pass and go on a regular basis.

I haven't been to the cinema since before the first lockdown as frankly it's cheaper and more enjoyable to stay at home and use Netflix 🤷‍♀️

I've never seen the cinema as a cheap night out, it's cost £20+ for everything you've mentioned for the last 20 years, I fact, I think only £20 is cheaper than what I'd typically pay for all of those things at our local cinema.
We take our own snacks and share lifts/parking if we want a cheaper night at the cinema.

Fish and chips have gone up in price much more than the cinema, though I guess that's more in line with inflation.

Our volunteer run, fabulous, local Art Deco cinema has all the latest films, 3 screens and costs £4.75 per adult and £3.75 per child. Absolute steal. Concessions cost between £2 - £5. It's an experience to visit and we're very lucky to have it.

We’ve just got back from the cinema, tickets £8.00 each. Parking free after 3pm in the car park next door. Two hot drinks £6.00. I took my own Opal Fruits.

I mean, the cost of literally everything has gone up, and admittedly wages haven't kept pace so non-essentials will feel more expensive, as we know they're optional AND beat ourselves up about it. But as PPs have said, snack-buying at the cinema is a mugs game!

Where we live, we can still go out for a low-key meal (Indian, local pub or similar) for around £20 each for food plus 1-2 drinks, but that would probably be one course only, really. Our nicer restaurants are definitely be closer to £30-40 per head though, and although they're worth it, that means I only go to those maybe 2-3 times a year.

Fish and chips here is about £8-9 per person, but we do our own mushy peas and bread 😁

I coul still go to the pub for less than £20 a night but obviously that's be 3 alcoholic drinks max, plus a soft drink or two. I'm not a massive drinker though, so I could get away with that. Our local Spoons is reasonably classy though, so a lot of people go there for dinner and a drink for less than a tenner, and you can see why. Lots of our local pubs have free music nights, and pub quizzes, although you normally have to pay a small entry fee.

Other than that we have a local arts centre that does film nights, tickets £7.

I guess it depends to an extent whether you socialise with drinkers and/or people who don't want to stay in. You could easily have a pizza and film night at home with plenty of snacks and hot choc etc for £5 pp, but the costs do shoot up with alcohol.

Has cinema ever been a cheap night?

£23 for fish and chips and a bottle of wine, for two people, works out at £11.50 a head. I’d say that is a cheap night.

This.