Taking a pop at cinema popcorn prices

We wanted to say once per week but the demands of work, children and, well, life in general often turn an aspiration into a near-miss.

But this past week – we did it.

Which was a reminder of one of the great scandals of our time.

Please, Vue Cinemas, do tell me how you justify charging the same price for a ticket (£9) as you do for a bucket of popcorn and a big fizzy drink?

Because I’d guess that the popcorn and drink cost you something like 50p, which would be a steep mark-up even if you halved the retail prices and doubled your own costs.

As for the pick and mix sweets, where do I start?

There are precious metals that are cheaper by weight than that stuff.

And so, to my utter lack of surprise, I never saw anyone buying it.

The argument goes that cinemas need to charge a fortune because the confectionery earns them more money than the film.

I don’t buy that, though, because it seems to me that a lot of customers run a mile from the popcorn stand.

They don’t even engage with the idea of buying food and drink any more. 
Where once, it was part of the fun of going to the cinema, these days it’s an assault course to be run.

I’m convinced that the reason those “print your own ticket” machines are quite so unreliable is that the companies want you to queue up and stare at slowly rotating hot dogs and nachos covered in “cheese”.

They think we’ll be beguiled.

In fact, I suspect many of us just feel queasy.

What I don’t understand is this – why not charge less and sell better quality food?

Sure, the profit margin would go down – let’s say from astronomically frightening to merely huge – but suddenly people would actually want to buy things.

They wouldn’t feel they were being ripped off, and they’d enjoy the experience much more.

They would feel embraced, rather feel they have been exploited.

Marketeers have a name for this sort of thing. They call it a “distress purchase”, which is a nice way of saying that you don’t have any choice.
If your tyre blows in a rainstorm on Christmas Eve on the M4, you’d probably pay someone a fair whack to get it fixed.

That’s a classic distress purchase.

A man wandering lost through the desert would swap his house for a big bottle of water. 

That’s how they see us, when they come to set the prices for cinema sweets.

Sheep, drawn to the out-of-town cinema, now in sudden and desperate need of jumbo-sized beakers of Coke or a suitcase full of popcorn – and honestly – does ANYONE like popcorn that much? Really? 

But guess what. We’re smarter than that.

We have all learned to stop off at the Dome roundabout on the way and stock up on sweets and drinks, and to smuggle them in subtly.

And I bet that, with every passing week, more and more people do it. 
So go on Vue, and Odeon, Empire, Cineworld and the rest. I challenge you.

Change the menu and sell things people want to eat.

Reduce prices and stop fleecing your customers.

Flog ice creams in the cinema if you want.

But please – don’t treat us like walking wallets, prepared to pay top-dollar prices for cut-price fodder.

We’re not that daft.

It’s more than a decade since I first walked through the doors of Television Centre to start work at the BBC.

It was a memorable experience, actually being paid to walk into this building, through the big glass reception and past the towering red-brick wall that forms part of the biggest studio.

I remember having my lunch in the shadow of the giant ornamental fountain, and thinking of how Roy Castle had once packed the place with tap-dancing children for an episode of Record Breakers.

It fizzed with life.

Everywhere you went, you risked bumping into famous people, bits of scenery or vaguely bewildered groups of tourists.

I once opened the door to a lift to find a single Dalek inside, its laser pointing straight out. I took the stairs…

And now it’s on the way out.

In a couple of weeks, the BBC News Channel will move out of Television Centre and over to New Broadcasting House in the middle of London. And that’ll be it.

I won’t ever again come to work at this grand old building.

Already it feels a bit like a ghost town.

Most of the staff have already moved to the new place, leaving behind just enough people to keep the News Channel on air.

As I sit writing this, the desks around me are all empty, screens turned off, phones silent.

TV Centre is going to become a mixture of homes, offices, a hotel and studios.

It will have a new life and, no doubt, bask in its memories.

But it will always a have a bit of magic about it.

The new place has better equipment and facilities, modern studios and, perhaps, better food (the jokes about BBC sandwiches – they’re true) but we’ll miss the hubbub and resonance of TV Centre.

Cheerio old girl, and thanks.

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