Lights, camera, empty? Movie theater audiences are thinning out across the U.S., leaving an industry pummeled in the wake of streaming services, lingering pandemic fears and cost concerns.
A recent study reported by the New York Times and conducted by the Quorum, a film research company, shows 49% of pre-pandemic moviegoers are not returning to theaters.
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And while 70% of the over 2,500 surveyed said they’d be sad to see theaters disappear, the industry continues to roll out red carpets to tumbleweeds, seeing cinemas cleared out before the end credits even get the chance to roll.
Many beloved Central Florida theaters also felt the impact packed by the pandemic’s punch.
Janie Pope, director of development and public relations at Maitland’s Enzian Theater, said closing for four months at the start of COVID-19, and subsequently opening and operating at half-capacity for nearly a year, hurt business.
“Everything came to a screeching halt unexpectedly,” said Pope, who was hired in 2019 at the height of the Florida Film Festival. “We were like, ‘Wait, is this for real?’...To go from selling out pretty regularly at full capacity, which could hold between 210 and 220 people per screening, to being closed and then reopening at half-capacity with the stigma that was attached...It really did hurt quite a bit.”
Ranked among the reasons theatergoers are not returning are COVID-19 safety concerns, price sensitivity and an antiquated theatrical experience, the study shows.
Participants in the poll were divided into five different groups according to the frequency with which they went to the theater, two groups — avid attendees and those not likely to return, even in a post-pandemic world — sandwiching the spectrum.
According to the study, those still attending theaters tend to be white, rich men who lean Republican and have no issues with vaccine mandates, while those likely never to return are mainly lower-income, ethnically diverse, rural females with low vaccination rates.
For the Enzian, the Eden Bar, a place attached to the cinema offering food and drinks outdoors, was the salve when these people stopped trickling in.
“Restaurants were starting to find these people coming back, but there was still this stigma attached to sitting indoors for a couple hours and watching a movie was kind of taboo still during that time, and that was before vaccines were really aggressively being taken advantage of,” Pope said.
The Enzian was also reconciling with Netflix commandeering content once exclusive to theaters and distributors holding their titles, delaying new releases.
Pope said the premiere of “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” in July 2021 was the first “burst of rejuvenation” the theater had seen since 2020, with new content attracting crowds.
Data collected by the film research company, led by Cultique and Fanthropology, reveals that offering rewards programs, lower costs for concessions — like popcorn and soda — improved seats, large-format screens and in-theater dining with bolder menu items would likely attract more people to the theater.
Local arthouse gems, like the Enzian, are already bringing back pre-pandemic perks, like membership benefits and in-person mixers, tastings and events.
And filmmakers, directors and actors are joining the drove of movie theater owners and employees, like Pope, encouraging audiences to support cinema, which is an art form in itself.
“These are the kinds of experiences you get your friends together for...you go show up and get popcorn and you get a beer and hang out and you talk about it. And you just have a good time and that’s its own very novelty experience that you can’t recreate elsewhere,” Pope said.
The Enzian, now seating at 75% capacity, has seen an uptick in ticket sales and more sold out regular programming over this past year.
“I think once (audiences) come back and they experience it, they remember what they’ve missed, right?” Pope said.