To think Vue Cinemas should have left their seats as they were and stayed at £4.99?!

[LydiaDeets]

Manchester Vue has been £4.99 for as long as I can remember.
We have an Odeon and Cineworld closer to us but they are both £10 per adult ticket.

We always make the longer journey to view as a family of 6 it's way more affordable. £30 still seems pricey for a movie but we have meerkat tickets so usually go on a Wednesday and save a further few quid.

They've now refurbished and put in reclining chairs.

Tickets are £10 now 😩 That's £60 for us to see a film!
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I think the £4.99 tickets were their biggest draw, considering all the other cinemas were double.

In the current climate where people are struggling I think most would prefer to pay a fiver to see a film in a normal seat!

If they wanted to pay a tenner for a fancy seat they have odeon, Cineworld

AIBU to think Vue have just shot themselves in the foot by taking away the only advantage they had over competitors, being half the price.

Now they've lost our custom completely as if we are paying a tenner we may as well go to one of the others.

We go to the quays. I love the recliner seats. There is only two of us tho. We only paid £8.99 last time we went. It’s a city centre cinema though at the printworks.

Was the 4.99 was only post pandemic prices to get people back into cinema? (might be wrong) It was odeon before it was vue and they’ve always been nearly a tenner.

Aren’t tickets staggered now depending on where you want to sit at vue? I think we will see more closing like cineworld to be honest. Plenty won’t afford it and the energy bills will be higher than the profits!

Cineworld which is a big hitter is about to go bust so…

We don't have a vue near us, but have been to them when away. We paid £4.99 per ticket and that was for recliner seats (pre pandemic). Was great value.

But given that cinemas were hit hard with the pandemic, and cineworld has already announced that they are preparing to file for bankruptcy I would suspect the price rises at vue are necessary.

Yes it does mean a trip to the cinema is now a luxury rather than a cheap night out.

Made the mistake of buying popcorn on our most recent Vue trip. Bought the smallest size (which was still pretty giant) and it was £6!! But I think cinemas have a fairly unviable business model these days, I’ve been wondering how profitable they are, especially during the week.

My bf and I went to the cinema for the first time in about four years (financial situation has been tough for a long time).

Best part of £50 for two of us, one coke and one popcorn. I nearly collapsed.

On the plus side, I found the new recliner seats comfy, clean and much less claustrophobic when trying the get by people to go to the loo (a large drink and small bladder always means I go)!

But twenty quid each FFS. On a Saturday morning at 11am. For some surround sound experience apparently (I couldn’t care less about it but the film time suited us). Wow.

Far too dear. Never again. Will continue paying a tenner a month or whatever it is for my Sky Cinema and enjoying at home in my own recliner chairs with a can of coke and a bag of mrs tillys popcorn :-D

my issue is that they charge me to take children in to see a crappy movie I don't want to see!! the cinema that starts letting 1 adult go free would get my business lol

A tenner for recliner seats in a major city sounds fair. You're looking at close to 20 quid around these parts. I much prefer the recliner seats myself and the screenings have always been pretty full.

Not the solution but there’s offers in groupon for odeon (and I think cineworld but best be careful if they’re wobbly) 2 tickets for £10 and 5 for £22. I’m sure they have Vue sometimes too (certain I have Vue ones to use…)

£5 is incredibly cheap for a cinema ticket. That’s like Odeon prices in the 90’s! Our Vue is a fiver we are so lucky but I don’t expect it to last forever. But I think £10 to see a film that millions to make and is an afternoons entertainment isn’t actually too bad either. Just take your own food!

I do however balk at going to the Everyman cinema. £16 for a ticket!!! Yes the sofas they provide are lovely but it’s a chair FFS so after 40,000 uses it’s still just a worn-in chair with stains on it.

Manchester Vue hasn’t been £5 for that long - five or six years maybe? On at least one occasion it was cheaper for me to get the tram from Bury than go to the cinema I could walk to (I think Bury dropped their prices after a while). This has made me nostalgic for my pre-child cinema trips!

Give it another ten years and I think cinemas won’t exist, quite possibly 5 years.

the movie viewing world will change to buying download rentals for a premium price when stuff is first released. It’s starting to happen already to some extent.

odeon last time I looked which was pre covid was £14 a ticket near me. Non reclining non premium seats. No way am I paying that, I wait for the dvd to come out.

I think cinemas are going the way of the dodo. The prices going up and up, combined with the fact that films are released on streaming services only a few weeks after they come out in the cinema, plus better quality and larger TVs at home mean there isn't a lot of incentive to go to the cinema. Why would you pay £15pp plus food for a film you can watch in a fortnight's time on your own HD TV for free?

YANBU OP. My Vue was still £4.99 when we last went (prob in 2021?), in London(!) and that's why we go. It's tired-looking and basic, but pretty clean, gloriously empty if you go in the morning like we do, and £5 a head is affordable - which is not just a big family thing, my family is half the size of yours and I just wouldn't go if they doubled their prices.

Really tricky timing - appreciate they'll be facing rapidly increasing costs like all businesses are, but so are customers and the cinema will be an easy luxury to drop for many of us. It's a bad look, but cineworld might mean they don't have to care about that.

This was a topic of discussion in our house yesterday after the news of Cineworld going under. I'm not sure any cinemas will survive tbh, do people really still go very often? we drive past our Cineworld regularly and there are never the crowds there used to be. I think they may soon become a thing of the past with all the early access on tv & so many films available for a small monthly subscription, given the financial hardships people are facing i would imagine most would rather pay £10 a month for unlimited films for everyone than £10 for one person to see one film!

Standard ticket prices where I am are £14.95…. Never been under £10 since I can remember.

I’m sure they’ve thought about it and decided this is the best way to keep going, 4.99 and bringing your own food isn’t exactly generating much for them so I doubt they’ll miss the business.

My love cinema is a Commodore. £4 a ticket with Mondays cheaper. I don't go often as I find most films are; children's, horror or DC/Marvel franchise.

Exactly. Cinemas have probably been hanging on for decades with increasing debt and it just doesn't really work as a business model any more. Plus people will be a lot more discerning about how they spend their declining disposable income.

Cineworld are in the process of going bust so the other operators might see a small short term boost, but realistically it might be a case of who goes next, especially if the companies have debt, which will get more expensive as interest rates increase.

Of course they charge more for sweets. How many people walk through a big supermarket compared to a cinema? Who do you think has bigger buying power with the manufacturer?

I love the reclining seats, so much more comfortable. And I buy their sweets as I feel sorry for them post lockdown. But the toddler is too small for the cinema so we don't go as a family yet; one or two tickets is a bit more affordable.

The other day DH and I booked a day's leave, put the toddler in nursery and took the older one to see Thor Four. Twas lovely!

I love the cinema, and am able and happy to pay those prices - the Vue recliner seats are lovely. I also like the Picturehouse. I never buy food or sweets or anything though. Watching a film at home is not the same at all, in my opinion. It is expensive for families though - I like going on my own 🤣

I also love the cinema. The experience of seeing a really good film on a big screen with a massive Costa latte is my main "going out" indulgence and in no way compares to watching at home. I went yesterday for a break from parenting a very active DS3! DH and I have Odeon Limitless cards. A couple of years ago he saw 102 films and I saw 83. £200ish a year - absolute bargain.

Why does anyone go? Same reason as they go to a National Trust or drive to the coast for a walk instead of stomping around the local park again I suppose.

YABU. The reclining seats are why we go to Vue.

I wonder if it's just bad timing. Our local Vue has been all recliner seats for years and was also only £4.99 a ticket. The fancy seats didn't make a difference.

We went recently however and they've gone up to around £7/8. I think they've just generally put prices up, regardless of the seats.