Saturday 2 September saw the triumphant return of National Cinema Day across the UK & Ireland. More than 700 cinemas participated in this year’s event, offering a broad range of films to customers, with tickets from just £3 (UK) and €4 (Republic of Ireland).
Around the five home nations, 713 cinemas took part in National Cinema Day this year (vs. 643 cinemas in 2022). Audience footfall was high with 1.7m cinemagoers choosing to see a film on Saturday, (vs. 1.6m in 2022), a 6% rise on last year’s already record-breaking numbers. Admissions reached three times the equivalent day of the pre-pandemic era with many operators reporting multiple sold out shows across the day.
As with last year’s initiative, the second annual National Cinema Day was led by cross-industry body Cinema First and supported by both the Film Distributors’ Association and the UK Cinema Association. In response to the day’s resounding popularity for a second consecutive year, Iain Jacob, Chair of Cinema First, said:
“After the success of last year’s inaugural event, to see this second edition prove even more successful shows beyond doubt that the cinema experience offers the most enriching and positive form of escapism. We are delighted to have been able to welcome so many people back to the Big Screen. Thank you to everybody who came.”
The success of National Cinema Day caps an already impressive period of audience engagement at UK & Irish cinemas including the territory’s biggest week of box office ever and its highest recorded admissions since December 2012. Key to this success was the impact of ‘Barbenheimer‘, with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (£92.6m, the 7th biggest film of all time in the territory) and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (£55.4m) co-existing to great effect.
Cinemas hosted a diverse range of other titles across the summer such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Elemental, The Meg 2, Asteroid City, Talk to Me and Joy Ride. Screening alongside existing titles, new releases benefiting from the timing of National Cinema Day included The Equalizer 3, Cobweb and Passages, as well as a 30th anniversary reissue of Jurassic Park.
Celebrating the joy of cinemagoing and the thrill and spectacle of cinema itself, National Cinema Day is fast becoming a highly anticipated event on the year’s social and film calendar. With such a positive response from audiences and operators alike, and with household budgets continually stretched due to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, the event seems certain to make a welcome return again next year.