THE giant cake baked and scoffed to celebrate the Empire cinema’s 10th anniversary was impressively large and, as such, entirely appropriate.

But one thing was surely missing – the words “size does matter” piped in icing along the top.

The slogan came from the marketing blurb for the 1998 monster-lizard-on-the-rampage blockbuster Godzilla, the first movie to grace the screens of the multiplex cinema, on Basildon’s Festival Leisure Park.

Early in the afternoon of July 15, 1998, the then UCI Cinema opened its doors for the first time and Ruth Llewellyn sold its first-ever ticket, for the sci-fi monster movie.

“I hadn’t been specially chosen,” Ruth says. “I was nobody special. I just happened to be rostered for ticket sales that day.”

There wasn’t even any special ceremony or fanfare.

“We just opened the box office and off we went,” says Ruth, a leisure and tourism student from Basildon College who joined the staff of the cinema as a fill-in job.

“I wasn’t particularly expecting to make my career here,” she adds.

Ten years on, Ruth is the cinema’s marketing manager and a key figure in steering its future into a second decade.

“It turned out to be a good place to work, with prospects,” she says.

Just for this week, however, Ruth has allowed herself to take her eye off the future and look over ten years which have proved one thing at least - size does indeed matter.

This year, the 12-screen cinema was Britain’s ninth most successful in the country in terms of financial turnover, beating swish West End and big city picturehouses.

Last year, it welcomed its millionth paying customer and the graph of visitor numbers has risen steadily, year on year.

Ian Duffield, the general manager, is quick to pay tribute to his staff and other managers.

But there is, of course, another major factor in the cinema’s success - the Festival Leisure Park at the heart of which it sits.

“The site is obviously key to what we’ve achieved,” Ian says.

Like Ruth, he has been there since day one. Back in 1998, the Festival Leisure Park was one of the first, not to mention the largest of its kind in the country.

From the outset, it was decided to site a multiplex cinema at the park’s focal point. UCI, the original cinema chain involved, was a key player and participated in the design.

“The idea was always different businesses would benefit from each other,” Ian says.

“It is a place to spend a night out in a secure atmosphere, without hassle. You go to the cinema and you have a meal out.

“UCI built the cinema here because it thought it was going to be a success, though there was a risk factor. It was a bit of an unknown quantity.”

Happily, he adds, it worked. If anything, it worked rather better than the park planners had hoped.

Managers from the different businesses meet regularly to discuss the development of the park as a whole.

“The other businesses tend to look to the cinema in terms of bringing in the numbers,’ Ian says.

“The clubs have an 18 to 24 target range, but we cater across the board, for every age group and every type of person.”

The theme for the next ten years is already set. It involves more live performers and more community links.

“We want to be something more than just a building where people come to see a film,” Ruth explains. “We want it to be a people place.”

The cinema recently brought in live musicians and actors to promote the Abba musical, Mamma Mia! and regularly offers free tickets as prizes for school competitions. It’s important to get young people into the idea of cinemagoing,” Ruth says.

“You get ten-year-olds coming in because of the competitions, who have never been to a cinema before. I’ve heard them say, ‘My dad’s got that film on DVD!’”

Plans in the pipeline to further enliven the leisure park include inviting in buskers and organising costume occasions.

Both Ian and Ruth remain optimistic about the future of cinemagoing, despite rival attractions.

“So many people have 42-inch widescreen TV screens at home now, but it hasn’t stopped attendances here climbing,” Ian says.

“People want to get out of the house for a night out and going to the cinema is still an event in its own right.

“Our feedback shows people will even sit through a movie they don’t like, but still feel they’ve had a good experience.”

Technological changes are also in the pipeline – 3-D screens, for instance, are on the way. Yet nothing can ever be taken for granted.

“We may have been here for ten years,” says Ruth, “but we still get people who arrive here, look around, and say ‘I didn’t know you were here.’”