High costs, low attendance: Bollywood needs to rethink ticket pricing in multiplexes

There have been lot of talk going around about how the movie watching audiences are charged high ticket rates for films which has resulted in a massive drop in the footfalls over the past few years.

The ticket prices for the evening shows at multiplexes in a city like Mumbai or Delhi are as high as Rs 400 to Rs 500 whereas the noon shows are priced in the range for Rs 250 to Rs 350. What was known as a source of entertainment in early 2000’s has now become a luxury. A middle class family of four people would think twice before investing their hard earned money on a film. This has resulted in a situation where in just a couple of films earn over Rs 300 crore at the box-office, while the rest of them end up much below Rs 100 crore. The audiences have become quite picky about their theatre venture which has resulted in the big ones being huge and small ones meeting disastrous fate.

There have often been complains from a section of audience about a commercial entertainers like Kick or Chennai Express doing record breaking business at the box office, but if one thinks from the layman point of view, splurging money on a film starring a superstar would make for an ideal bet as compared to a much smaller film with a lesser known face.

A film like Commando 2 is priced at Rs 300 per ticket at a multiplex in Mumbai. Doesn’t the ticket price alone kill the chances of the film doing good business? Content driven films have done well in the past, but if we see a common factor among all films that managed to surpass all expectations is the fact that they carried a tremendously positive word of mouth. The films didn’t open well at the box office and only once the audiences got to know that the film is worth their money, they began to plan their visit to the cinema hall.