High price of a trip to the cinema (From Echo)

High price of a trip to the cinema

2:22pm Thursday 19th July 2012 in Letters

I GREW up in the Seventies when Southend had a choice of cinemas with the Odeon, ABC and the Classic.

This must have generated a healthy level of competition back then, because cinema tickets were kept at an affordable level.

I didn’t grow up in an affluent household, but we could certainly go to the pictures pretty much whenever we wanted.

That’s not the case now.

On Saturday I went to the Odeon – which is now the town’s only cinema – to see Ice Age 4.

The cost for two adults and one child was more than £25.

And that’s without adding the somewhat inflated cost of the drinks and sweets you can buy from the Odeon’s foyer.

The cinema must now be completely out of the price range of thousands of families in Southend.

Ironically, one of the first adverts the Odeon shows before each film is a warning about piracy.

While I don’t condone film theft, I can certainly understand how tempting it must be for those parents who have been priced out by the Odeon to make sure their kids get to see the latest films by buying a knock-off DVD.

The Odeon regularly advertises the “cinema experience”, telling audiences how much better it is to watch a film at the cinema than on television.

It needs to do much more to ensure that’s an experience available to everyone in Southend – not just the lucky few who can still afford it.

PAUL ILETT

Lovelace Gardens

Southend