Better, but not yet a return to the pre-Covid-19 years. “Cinema theaters in Europe continue their recovery”says Gilles Fontaine, head of the market information department at the European Audiovisual Observatory, which is publishing its annual report on Saturday 20 May, on the occasion of the 76e Cannes film festival.
In 2022, nearly 657 million admission tickets were sold in the European Union and Great Britain, compared to 401 million in 2021. As a reminder, attendance had fallen to 302 million in the midst of the Covid pandemic. -19 in 2020, due to the range of sanitary measures imposed on the rooms. The threshold of one billion admissions, crossed in 2019, is therefore still a long way off.
“We are seeing significant disparities between the different countries, with good recoveries in France, Great Britain and Germany”, emphasizes Mr. Fontaine. The Comscore Institute confirms this analysis with a very good start to the year in Germany: box office receipts there grew by 15% over the first four months of the year compared to the same period of 2019, exceeding its pre-Covid results. In France, revenues are only 2% of the pre-pandemic level. Conversely, they are still behind by 21.5% in Spain and 30% in Italy.
“Excellent news”
For its part, Europa Cinemas – the network of 1,168 arthouse cinemas in Europe (2,782 screens) – underlines the good recovery in attendance in Denmark, Belgium and Finland, which contrasts with the difficulties in Greece. , Bosnia or Estonia. Overall, the first estimates in 2023 seem encouraging, even if “we still don’t know how far this rebound will go and whether the effects of the crisis can really be erased”, everywhere in Europe, says Mr. Fontaine.
Some positive trends have emerged. Like the increase in the market share of national cinemas which, according to Claude-Eric Poiroux, managing director of Europa Cinemas, increased by 7% in 2022 in its network. So much so that almost a third of admissions went to national films in 2022. “Excellent news for countries that support their industry and production! » he said.
Laura Houlgatte, Director General of the International Union of Cinemas (UNIC), which represents exhibitors (44,000 screens) in thirty-nine territories on the European continent, explains: “The countries where the national cinema market share was significant before the pandemic have all kept it” in 2022.
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