Event cinema: opera in cinemas takes off
Cinemas are proving to be a goldmine for some of the UK’s finest opera and ballet companies. Hollywood films are facing competition from live performances being shown in cinemas around the country, in a development called ‘event cinema’.
In recent weeks tens of thousands of Britons have gone to the cinema to watch live screenings of ballet or opera. La Bohème has beaten Gangster Squad at the box office, and The Nutcracker came ahead of the latest Bond film when it was shown last month.
Over the past three years the number of cinemas showing ballet and opera performances has risen from fewer than 100 to around 250. More than 120 different events were shown at cinemas last year, a 400% increase from five years ago. And it is not just opera and ballet. Plays are also enjoying big audiences, with 20,000 tickets already sold for a cinema screening of a performance of Alan Bennett’s People at the National Theatre next month.
Advances in digital technology have allowed opera and ballet companies to broadcast their event lives, and cinemas have realised that the growing demand for an alternative to blockbuster films can help increase their own profits, especially when they can charge more – at around £15 on average – than for a movie.
For one company, Picturehouse Cinemas, event cinema already represents more than ten per cent of its ticket sales. And experts predict that very soon more than two million Britons a year will go to the cinema to see live performances or events – double the number that do so already. By the end of this decade at least one in 20 cinema tickets will be for something other than a movie, according to David Hancock, head of film and cinema at IHS Screen Digest. ‘There is great demand – especially for cultural products,’ he said, though sport and pop concerts have also made an appearance.
Melissa Keeping, who chairs the recently established Event Cinema Association, said: ‘Opera and ballet are expensive and generally located in large cities, so even if tickets are affordable the journey makes it difficult for a lot of people to go. But bring the performance live to your local cinema, in real time, at a fraction of the cost – what’s not to like?