Single-screen theatres in tier II and III cities are witnessing a dip in footfalls after the Government’s demonetisation drive. Multiplexes seems to have weathered the storm as they have already been adopting e-payment mechanisms but are still seeing slowdown in the F&B offering.

Rajasthan-based Miraj Cinema, which has 65 screens in 11 States, said that it has been seeing a drop in occupancy. “At least 60 per cent of our bookings are through cash. The rupee demonetisation has impacted footfall as entertainment is low on the list of priority,” said Amit Sharma, MD, Miraj Cinema. He said even though the company has tie-ups with major wallets, it has been impacted in towns where it has presence.

Several single-screen owners and miniplexes (two or three screen theatres) have been witnessing a massive drop in footfalls and ticket sales. Companies in the business said even after incentives and cut in ticket prices, footfalls were yet to pick. This, in turn was affecting the collection of big budget films.

Ashok Dash, COO, Miniplex, K Sera Sera Miniplex Ltd, said: “Despite the facility of online booking, a large chunk of cine-goers use cash at the box-office counters. The demonetisation has affected our miniplex business, as most of our miniplexes are at tier II and III cities/towns. Electronic payment mode at these small cities are limited, and hence, the business has been abysmally low."

In states with high concentration of single screens such as Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Bihar and so on, are witnessing almost a 50 per cent drop in ticket sales and thereby impacting the regional cinema business.

A report by IDBI Capital Markets & Securities said that for media, the hit will be in the form of lesser advertisements next month and in the last quarter of the current fiscal.

“No significant impact on advertisement revenue has been visible as the inventory was already sold. The actual impact to be visible over the next month and Q4FY17. Multiplexes have seen impact of decline in footfalls for movies like Rock On 2 and Force 2 . This is likely to have impacted both the box-office collection and F&B sales. We expect 15-20 percent impact on footfalls due to decline in cash transactions. We believe that this should ease in December with the improvement of content. Impact on smaller film producers to be felt over the next three to six months," it added.

Big multiplexes, however, seem to have weathered the storm with more consumers opting for the e-payment gateways.

Satwik Lele, COO, Mukta A2 Cinema, said: “We did see the effect but it was mainly restricted to only the first week of demonetisation. However, even now cash transactions have reduced and payments through the use of plastic has increased. There is also a surge in online bookings. We have not seen much of an effect in the F&B sales. This industry is mainly driven by content and with good films, business is as usual.”

Inox Leisure last week partnered with State Bank of India to facilitate cash withdrawal at the nearest Inox multiplex using a debit card. The facility is available at 106 of its properties pan-India.

Multiplex chains such as PVR says that it has done away with things like convenience fee to push e-transactions.

Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR Cinemas says, “Demonetisation has encouraged customers to trust the online model leading to an increase in online penetration for booking tickets and credit card usage across PVR cinemas.” The company said it has also introduced discounts and incentives like zero convenience fee which has led to a seven per cent increase in the online sales within one week.

Datta said on comparing data for this weekend with the previous weekend, “we can see that the online sales have risen from 53.5 per cent during the last weekend to 61 per cent in this weekend. Also, the cash sales over the weekend dropped to 21.5 per cent compared to 41 per cent over the last weekend. The credit card sales at box office counters too, increased to 17.6 per cent from 5.9 per cent previously”.

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