Cinema Experience Is The One That Counts

Jun 18, 2025 CFM Daily, Distribution, Trends 0

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SHANGHAI June 18, 2025 – Cinemas are better off reaching out to a broader demographic of consumers with customized service and film-related products than complaining about the lowering ticket price, said CEO of Le Vision Pictures Zhang Zhao at a panel discussion in Shanghai’s Putuo district. Reported by Hua Yang.

Zhang and four other cinema insiders including Zeng Maojun, general manager of Wanda Cinema Line, Fang Bin, general manager of Dadi Digital Cinema, Hu Qiming, president of Lumière Pavilions and Liu Yong, CEO of Gewara, talked about the future of cinema on June 17.

Increase revenue in the theater

“In the age of Internet, rather than refusing the 9.9-yuan movie ticket, cinemas could utilize the Internet to attract more audience and add merchandising sales in the theater to increase the revenue,” he explained.

Zhang cited TINY TIMES as an example. When the film was released, Le Vision Pictures organized Tiny Times Carnivals at thousands of cinemas, transforming the cinemas into big parties. “Even though the carnival ticket was sold at 60 yuan, we could not keep up with the demand as the ticket includes not only the film, but also the price of related fun activities,” he said.

Improve social activities in the cinema

Zhang believed in the future, films could be watched on mobile phones, on TV or even on cars. So in order to survive, cinemas need to get more social.

Zeng agreed on the importance of organizing social activities of cinemas. “As for the future cinemas, the income of non-box office will be much higher,” he said.

He emphasized two areas that cinemas need to pay more attention to. “First, you must make consumers have dependence on your consumption scenes, that’s to say they are willing to come. For example, we can evaluate how many times the consumer wants to go to your cinema, the more frequent it is, the greater this consumer’s dependence is. Second, we must have enough consumption foundation, namely member foundation. And we also need to manage the member system well,” he elaborated.

Zeng also stated that so far, Wanda Cinema has more than 38 million members, and it is predicted that, by the end of June, the members will reach 40 millions.

Hu, on the other hand, thought the social property of cinema would never be replaced, at least not in the next ten years. “In the US, cinema is considered as the cheapest place to date so some people say cinema will never disappear in the US. In China, the situation is a little different, but at the moment, more than 25,000 people in China share a screen. There is still plenty of room for cinemas to develop,” he said.

To be more UE-oriented

“Consumption in cinemas greatly differs from the traditional retail sales. Cinema is experience-oriented; the audiences want to experience and feel their values in cinemas, rather than the price,” Zeng said.

He noted that in terms of User Experience, there are some very important indexes. “For example, whether your hardware is good or not, which means whether you have used the latest film technology to present the best filming effects to audiences. Another one is whether you can make audience feel your services differ from others’. People go to Starbucks to experience the feelings, rather than the coffee beans they use,” he said.

Meanwhile, Liu added that cinema and cinema line are two different things. “Cinema is the place we go to watch movies while cinema line is a service organization. Cinema line needs to make the best of experience to reflect the value of cinemas. If they could not keep up with the development, they will be eliminated from the market. So I’m not sure whether there will be small-sized cinemas anymore,” he explained.

 

 

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