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Editor: Emily Pattullo
ISBN: 1-84168-274-8

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Executive Summary

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

With a combined box-office revenue of £667.4 in 2000, cinema and theatre represent two of the UK's popular cultural and leisure pursuits. Cinema enjoyed a revival in the mid-1990s, but admissions have shown only slow growth since 1997, rising by 2.9 percent in 2000. Box-office revenue, however, increased by 12.9 percent in the same year, mainly as a result of ticket-price inflation and a growth in food-and-drink sales. In theatre, admissions increased by 4.2 percent in 2000, while box-office revenue rose by 5.1 percent.

Although multiplexes continue to dominate the cinema market, their rate of development has slowed since 1999, due to a saturation of screens and increasing consolidation within the industry. Cinema operators have moved back to city-centre locations, focusing on refurbishments. Operators have also become more oriented towards marketing and towards introducing more branded operations to attract new customers, e.g. UCI's 'The Filmworks'.

The UK theatre market continued to experience a steady decline in admissions in the latter half of the 1990s, mainly due to lower admissions and revenues in the provincial theatres. However, there has been a revival in regional theatres, starting in the late 1990s, owing to the emergence of a new wave of young, talented playwrights, and also more productions, attracting a broader audience.

West-End theatre continues its strong dominance of box-office revenue, but attendances have decreased since 1999, falling by 6.1 percent in 2000. Declining tourist numbers, together with the attacks on the US World Trade Center and the Pentagon, have severely affected the West-End theatre business, resulting in several early closures in 2001. The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) recently embarked on a major marketing exercise to encourage domestic theatre-goers with a series of price-led promotions and joint offers. There has been recent unprecedented corporate activity in the West-End-theatre sector. The most significant was the acquisition of Stoll Moss Theatres by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber for £87.5m in January 2000. In February 2000, the Ambassador Theatre Group Ltd acquired the seven West-End theatres owned by Associated Capital Theatres for £18m.

In March 2001, the UK theatre industry received a £25m boost in core funding from the Government. This should ensure better-quality theatre, while encouraging new talent and innovation. The Arts Council also announced plans to unite with the ten regional Arts Boards, creating a single
funding-and-development organisation for all the arts throughout the country.

In cinemas, overexpansion in the number of screens has led many leading operators to scale back their new schemes, while some have withdrawn from the market altogether. An example of this is Hoyts Cinemas Ltd, which sold its last remaining UK cinema at Bluewater Shopping Centre to National Amusements UK Ltd in January 2001.

Over the next 5 years, cinemas will offer a wider range of leisure activities, while the advent of digital cinema or 'd-cinema' will transform the nature of cinema exhibition.

Text © 2001 Key Note

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Last updated by Duncan Nottage 28th December 2001