Tamil Nadu exhibitors – distributors are ready to screen Master at 50% occupancy but not Kerala counterparts? Today the price of a ticket for Master show is Rs 5000 in the black market. Why ? Exhibitor Niklesh Surya tweets that there is demand for 500% and only 50% can be sold. What to do?. The answer is Rs 5000 in black. How much of it goes back to theatre- distributor from this money ?. All multiplexes with online bookings show that all shows are booked. Most of them have a minimum of 28 shows per day and this does not include the special fan club shows.
Now Dr. G. Dhananjayan , trade analyst who unlike others is also a trader of films said in his YOUTube channel about how much less Master will rake in compared to previous release – Bigil. Bigil had 650 screens a day with 100 % occupancy. 58 shows a day with 500 seat capacity average per show. Total of 16,25,000 lakh people watched on day one. Now with 800 screens, for a three hour long film, 50% occupancy, you get only 60% of the last year crowd – around 50 lakhs per day.
So the solution according to him is flexi pricing and combating online piracy. He quotes a tweet of actor Aravind Swamy to buttress his point. Swamy asks how a product can be sold for the same price at all outlets which have different real estate investments. So a Pepsi should cost more in a Mall in city and less in one outside, a shop in Nungambakkam can sell it for more and one in Tambaram for less. Reason being real estate value. Instead if Swamy cited the quality of a dosa in Saravana to that of AMMA eatery for price differentiation, then many films would have to offer free beverages and eats with tickets ( like what happened when cinema halls opened after COVID restrictions were relaxed).
Flexi pricing in buses during festive time, says Dhananjayan. During the coming Pongal, can he buy a bus ticket as per Govt rates of flexi pricing ? The only area where flexi pricing goes on is in tourism sector- hotels and airlines. Take the case of flexi pricing in Bangalore- Hyderabad. The high rates are for first three days. But does it come down on day four ? No. reason the film is getting viewers. Yes. if it has no viewers.
Kerala theaters get crowds for films that are worth seeing in a movie hall. Even Lucifer was on the net within hours of release. Difference is that the producer team hires cyber experts to go after these pirates and block the URL’s that are mentioned in the court order and then trace them to new avatar that they pop up. Kerala police cyber cell helps out with DOT to get ISP blocked by service providers. After a five day battle and then it comes back on net. Yet another reason is that fan clubs do not encourage black marketing and a vigilant media is a big scare to these racketeers.
8 months of drought in the film trade will now be hit by a flood called Master. The water bodies, tanks and canals are all de-silted and ready to store this flood waters. This water has to last till Valimai – Annatthe reach sometime in mid summer. In between, surprise low pressure troughs may bring in surprise rain. Happy Pongal watching.
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