Hacker News Reader

Comment by arrrg | Hacker News Reader

Would you consider $30/month to be a lot?

I pay €23.40/month (about $27.50/month) to be able to watch as many movies as I want in all German UCI cinemas. There are no limitations (I think our record is watching five movies in a day) or surcharges. (I think some select newly renovated or built cinemas do take surcharges for certain special seats or cinemas, but I’m not affected in the city I am in.)

That’s definitely worth it for me, considering that I watch a couple hundred movies per year in the cinema. (You need about 3-4 movies/month to easily get above the €23.40.)

The other big chain chain cinema in the city (cinemaxx) offers a similar flat rate (but at a higher price) and this flat rate hasn’t been in place forever, but for at least a couple of years. I would have assumed that you can get something similar everywhere and if not, why not?

View on HN

I had the same at Cineworld in Ireland a few years ago. I think at the time I was paying ~€15/mo and a single ticket was €8.

At the time there were a few restrictions, you needed to pay more for 3D or IMAX, and you had to collect tickets from the counter. This last part meant going at peak times was discouraged (as you needed to queue and weren’t guaranteed a ticket), so I usually went at off peak times when the cinema was usually empty.

Are multiplex cinemas really completely filled so often? We always just show up 15 minutes before the film starts and never had any trouble. I mean, we are sad when we can’t find a row with no one directly in front of or behind us …

Obviously you shouldn’t watch the new Avengers movie during the first couple of weeks, but I wouldn’t watch it during those weeks even if I had no flat rate. Cinemas full of people are awful. (Also, I think I can even order online, but in practice that was never necessary and I do want to sit next to my friends.)

This certainly seems like a way for cinemas to drive up utilization.

If my local Cinema (incidentally Cineworld) offered it I would seriously consider going there more often.

Is this not the same thing?

https://www.cineworld.co.uk/unlimited

For reference, at my local Cineworld in Greenwich, 17.90 is less than the cost of two adult tickets.

Mine's in Germany, I assumed it's part of the UK chain because of the name. After some searching I'm still not sure whether it is. If it is it seems like the management has pretty much abandoned it - Here's the website (pricing): https://cineworld-luenen.de/kino/tree/node4217/city280

Yes. It's too much. I might see only one movie in a month.

Then the movie pass doesn't apply to you. Why even respond to this? Go see your one movie, and others who watch more than one can invest in a monthly pass.

But it does - the whole point of MoviePass, or what cinemas come up with on their own to defeat/replace it, is to remove dollars every month from the pockets of people who don’t see a lot of movies.

Sorry, I don't see what your point is. MoviePass nor the theaters require you to buy a monthly subscription. Go pay for one movie, and be done with it. If you're dumb enough to buy into subscriptions and not use it, that's your issue. This isn't anything new anyhow, Netflix makes money off of people never returning movies for a year.

No, it's to remove dollars every month from the pockets of people who THINK they see a lot of movies, but in reality don't. Just like Costco or any other membership-based wholesaler depend on people having the illusion of value in bulk when in reality a lot of people probably break even or come out worse, when waste is factored in.

Movie theatres probably have high fixed costs and a low variable costs. As such it can be in their best interest to drive up utilisation, even if the revenue per customer per film seen goes down.

> Then the movie pass doesn't apply to you. Why even respond to this?

Because this is a discussion forum and OP is discussing this price point.

Bah, according to the website there's no UCI cinema in the south. Also as far as I know our Munich Cinemaxx doesn't have and never had such an offer.

It’s quite hidden, actually: https://www.cinemaxx.de/zeitkarten

€400 for a year (€33/month) and you have to pay it upfront.

I would probably go for it if I had to, but that’s close to my personal limit of what I’m willing to pay. Especially the whole prepaid aspect is a bit hard to swallow. (Since I have my UCI Unlimited Card now for more than a year I can cancel it monthly.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com