“Too busy.”
The person in charge of a theater management company in Henan said frankly that it is common to get off work at 2 a.m. during the Spring Festival. This is just a microcosm of the busy scene of the Spring Festival.
Covid-19 pneumonia has repeatedly brought many uncertainties. The proportion of the Spring Festival in the box office of the whole year has further increased. Theater operators hope to use this window period to “replenish blood”. In non important schedules, cinemas are often deserted. Behind the schedule, the lack of high-quality content puzzles cinema practitioners.
Industry insiders expect that with the further improvement of the epidemic prevention and control situation, the production, production and release of domestic films will enter a normal state, the introduction of foreign films is also expected to resume, supplement the China Film Co.Ltd(600977) market content matrix, and the China Film Co.Ltd(600977) market is expected to be reinstalled.
work overtime to prepare for the Spring Festival
As the biggest schedule of the year, many cinemas started the preparations for the Spring Festival half a month in advance.
Photo provided by interviewees of Hollywood International studios in Zhengzhou, Henan
Epidemic prevention is a top priority. On the eve of the Spring Festival, the epidemic situation in Henan was controlled in time, which made many cinema people breathe a sigh of relief. Wu Qiming, deputy general manager of Henan Hollywood Cinema Management Co., Ltd., told China Securities Journal China Securities Taurus that the reception pressure of cinemas during the Spring Festival is unprecedented in a year, and personnel reserve and training need to be done well in advance, “There are health, fire drills and epidemic prevention plans that need to be put in place, because there are a large number of customers, and there can be no mistakes anywhere.”
The staff of Dongyang Yintai store of Bona international studios are doing hygiene and killing, and the respondents are providing pictures
In Zhejiang, Hu Xiaotao, the manager of Dongyang Yintai store of Bona international studios, entered the Spring Festival file time ahead of schedule. He set the poster picture of “shuimen bridge of Changjin Lake” as a personal wechat avatar. “Choose it as the avatar. On the one hand, this film is the best seller in the Spring Festival. On the other hand, it is also produced by Bona. I hope to increase the exposure through various channels such as the circle of friends.” In the face of the “hard battle” of the Spring Festival, the work intensity of Hu Xiaotao and his colleagues has also increased sharply. Hu Xiaotao said that the number of Spring Festival stalls has increased and the business hours have been extended, while the employees have given up the opportunity to reunite with their families. They have played a twelve point spirit at work in order to seize this golden opportunity and expand the box office.
In the publicity and distribution work, the competition of the spring festival began early. The new third board innovation layer company infinite freedom is the head enterprise of marketing services in China’s subdivided fields. This year, the company undertook the marketing work of “this killer is not too calm”. Zhu Weijie, chairman of the company, revealed that the company’s project team serving the film has been fighting hard for three months. During the Spring Festival, the whole staff of the company is basically in a non-stop state, and has been preparing for the new media marketing and short video marketing of the film.
content supply has become a pain point in the industry
The covid-19 pneumonia epidemic has been repeated in the past two years, and the importance of the Spring Festival is more prominent.
Wu Qiming said that the box office of the company’s cinemas in third and fourth tier cities accounted for 20% – 30% of the annual box office, which is normal, and this proportion is still increasing. Gu Lina, head of star vision film management, who operates cinemas in Chongqing and Zigong, Sichuan, also felt the same way. She believes that the film supply is the biggest disturbance factor, especially the significant reduction in the number of imported blockbusters, which affects the audience’s viewing enthusiasm.
The “film shortage” in the summer of 2021 is particularly significant. The box office of summer films in 2021 was 7.38 billion yuan, down 58.5% from the same period in 2019, the lowest since 2014; The lack of popular films and the withdrawal of popular films affected by the epidemic are the main internal reasons for the decline of the market. In the summer of 2021, only two films with a box office of more than 1 billion yuan were “Chinese doctor” and “anger · serious case”, which contributed 33% of the total box office. Different from relying on “Nezha’s magic child coming into the world” to burst the summer file in 2019, the box office volume of films with a box office volume of more than 2 billion yuan in the summer file in 2021 is vacant.
Sealand Securities Co.Ltd(000750) the research report pointed out that after the epidemic, due to the change of travel and consumption habits on the demand side, the audience’s willingness to watch films in the box office schedule has increased significantly, and high-quality films on the supply side also tend to be released in the schedule. Under the two-way influence, the box office performance of the core schedule is better than that before the epidemic. The box office of the Spring Festival, may day and national day in 2021 has created a historical box office record in the same period, with a total box office of 12.75 billion yuan, accounting for 17.2%, 3.6% and 9.7% of the whole year respectively, accounting for 30.5%, an increase of 12 percentage points compared with the same period in 2019.
The lack of high-quality content supply has worsened the operation of many “movie watching and eating” cinemas. According to the analysis of a senior cinema line person in China, nearly half of China’s small and medium-sized cinemas may hover at the breakeven point in the past two years.
In the face of business pressure, increasing revenue and reducing expenditure has become the consensus of cinemas. In the daily operation of cinemas, rent and salary are fixed main expenses, and there is little room for salary change. Even if the business is suspended due to the epidemic, it needs to be paid normally, and the preferential rent depends on the face of the property owner. Hu Xiaotao is careful in spending. In terms of electricity charges, reducing unnecessary lighting in the office can save tens of thousands of yuan. In terms of personnel, he carries out all-round training for employees to master ticket checking, selling goods, screening and other businesses, so as to maximize personnel efficiency.
Gu Lina said that the number of staff has been optimized due to the reduction of audience. The cinema has introduced intelligent means, and ticket collection and ticket checking machines have improved the efficiency of personnel. However, she also pointed out that the improvement of the degree of self-service in cinemas has shortened the stay time of the audience in cinemas in disguise, and affected non ticket businesses such as derivatives sales and play.
It is worth noting that in 2021, the China Film Co.Ltd(600977) market showed a positive recovery trend. In 2021, the cumulative box office of China Film Co.Ltd(600977) market was 47.258 billion yuan, an increase of 131.5% over 2020 and recovered to 73.7% in 2019.
Looking forward to the new year, gulina hopes that there will be no loss in cinema operation. Zhu Weijie wants to seek innovation in the schedule, create the schedule through marketing, distribution and content in small and medium-sized projects, and strive for a good market income. Wu Qiming firmly believes that with the support of relevant policies of the national cultural industry, there will be more and more excellent works, and the film market will eventually usher in recovery.
