How much profit is made from concession items as opposed to the movie tickets itself?
How much of a mark-up are they charging on their food and drinks?
If everyone came to the movies and didn’t buy concessions, would the theaters go out of business?
Concessions are usually what puts a movie theater in the black. For a big film, the theater is only getting about 10% of the gross opening week. If the film fills the theaters, they may do OK, but if there are empty seats, they’re in trouble. The concession money is essential.
I don’t know the markup, but you can get a bag of popcorn at your supermarket for less than $2. The equivalent amount at a concession stand would probably be at least $5.
So if tickets are $8, and the person buys a tub of popcorn (with, say, a $5 price tag), the theater takes in $0.80 from the ticket and $3 (at least) from the popcorn.
Most theaters would be in serious trouble if no one bought concessions.
I didn’t think the theater got even 10% of movie box office gross.
Nearly all the gross goes to the people who made the movie.
The percentage the theater gets varies from film to film (depending on how big of a picture it is) and week to week (depending on how long it’s been out). The longer a film has been out, the more the theater gets each successive week. That is one reason why so many theaters are hurting; they expanded too quickly with all the multi-/megaplexes and now everyone who wants to see a movie the first week can. Turnover on films is higher, as is the pressure to open a film on as many screens as possible for that precious opening weekend figure. Very few films have “legs” anymore; even movies that make $50M opening weekend are memories 4-5 weeks later. Without the formerly reliable “legs” phenomenon, theaters are seeing less of the film grosses than they used to because movies aren’t out long enough to really help the exhibitors much.
As for concessions, they buy everything bulk. That’s why theaters push high yield foods: popcorn, drinks, nachos. They buy these in large amounts and do a dramatic mark-up. It’s been a long time since I managed concessions so I can’t throw exact cost figures out, but they make most of their money off these items. Also, these items are critical because they are upsellable (“For a quarter more, I can make your small a medium”, etc.). Candy isn’t, neither are ice cream or pretzels. These account for a very small percentage of the profits off concessions.
On the popcorn, the markup is nothing short of astronomical. In my days working at the campus dollar theater, we’d break even for the night after our first bag. Anything after that, was pure profit.
Recently in a class about mass media, such as movies, I was told that a bucket of pop corn costs the theater something like thirty-eight cents. Sorry, no cite.
Somebody – I think it was Roger Ebert, but I won’t swear to it – once said that movie theaters were essentially candy stores that would throw in a movie as a premium.