The Spring Festival in-cinema movie market is a compelling subject for analysis. From a macro perspective, its structure transcends the basic two-sided model of buyers and sellers. This market encompasses multiple stakeholders: cinemas, filmmakers (including actors and directors) and their production companies, ticketing platforms, rating agencies, social media, and, crucially, the consumers themselves. These Spring-Festical films are typically produced months in advance, with release dates often aligned with the Spring Festival holidays. They are usually family-friendly comedies, are specifically designed for holiday viewing and might not hold the same appeal outside this context. This creates a marketplace with diverse goods (of small variance), almost invariable supply, and flexible pricing mechanisms—ticket prices can fluctuate, and cinemas have the autonomy to schedule screenings.
Advertising campaigns are a pivotal aspect of this market. Significant budgets are allocated to ads aimed at convincing families to choose specific films over others, or simply to entice them into theaters. Strategies for boosting exposure include employing bots to inflate ratings on review platforms and orchestrating social media campaigns to generate buzz. While these tactics can increase visibility, their effectiveness in persuading genuine audience interest is debatable.
Ticket pricing strategies offer another dimension of intrigue. Cinemas wield considerable influence over both film selection and ticket pricing, presenting a classic optimization challenge: dynamically adjusting prices and seating allocations to maximize revenue. The introduction of ticketing platforms complicates this landscape, creating a hybrid information and purchasing network for consumers. This can lead to pricing disparities where identical seats are sold at significantly different prices, sometimes with a 50% variance.
This happens recently with one of my friends. He and his family went to watch Andy Law’s new film ‘The Movie Emperor’. They bought two tickets on Douyin (Chinese TikTok) and the remaining one on another platform. Despite the three tickets are for the same time and adjacent seats, their price is significantly different.
However, the competitive zeal can sometimes lead to consumer disillusionment. For instance, my experience with “PEGASU 2” was marred by misleading high ratings and an inflated sense of popularity, likely the result of strategic manipulation rather than genuine acclaim. The film suffered from a disjointed plot, sluggish pacing, and lackluster audio-visual quality, failing to meet the expectations set by its promotional efforts. This underscores the potential pitfalls of operational strategies that prioritize market manipulation over authentic engagement.