We continue to learn and see success from the non-live side of the entertainment business. Check out these interesting statistics from the Paramount Pictures movie “Paranormal”:
- Cost of film to produce: $15,000
- Paramount purchased film for: $300,000
- Cost of national marketing campaign: less then $10 million
- Gross of movie to date: $62 million
- How Hollywood has been handling the recession: Priceless
I have written a few blog posts over the past year about how the movie industry has been successful during this recession. One fact that has been proven during every recession and the great depression is that people buy movie tickets.
When I was in college, I took a U.S. history class. Of course the depression was part of this class. We learned that Hollywood flourished during the depression because movies were inexpensive to see and they were an escape from the real problems of the outside world. The same is true today. You might think movie tickets are expensive at $10.00 a ticket but based on other discretionary dollar expenditures they are not. The public wants entertainment. They want to escape for a few hours. If the movie industry can provide this, why can’t all of us in live entertainment? Why are our fans not buying tickets for live entertainment with the same enthusiasm?
Do we really need to charge $150 a ticket for a 90 minute live show? Is it possible we could provide the same event for $75 a ticket? Are we still charging these high numbers for a good reason? The price of a ticket from initial production of the show until it comes to the end-user (customer) is mind-blowing. One theory I heard was that if we lower our prices now, it will be hard to get back to the “big” money later. Based on history, does anybody really believe that?
Tags: Great Depression, Hollywood and recession, live event ticket prices, Paramount Pictures, Paranormal
