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At 1:30 a.m. Beijing time on July 27, the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games kicked off on the banks of the Seine, which was the first time in the history of the modern Olympic Games that the opening ceremony was held in an open urban space.
At the same time, in hundreds of theaters in China, the audience watched the opening ceremony through the big screen, which was full of French romance, intertwined with classical and modern.
This is the first time that domestic audiences have watched the live broadcast of the Olympics in cinemas. The "Cinema Watching the Olympics" activity introduced the wonderful Olympic Games broadcast by the main station into the national cinema in real time through the China Film reservation screening platform.
From July 28th to August 12th, there will be 20 events and 1 closing ceremony in the theater open for reservations, live broadcast events include table tennis, badminton, diving, volleyball, basketball, football, etc., covering the traditional advantages and strengths of the Chinese team and the popular events that domestic sports fans pay more attention to and have a large fan base.
In order to bring the audience a more extreme audio-visual experience of watching the Olympic Games, many theaters have discharged high-standard theaters such as CINITY hall, laser hall, 4K hall, giant screen hall, Dolby Atmos hall, DTS:X immersive sound hall for screening.
Fu Ruoqing, Chairman of China Film Co., Ltd., said at the launching ceremony: "I believe that with the large screen and shocking sound effects of the theater, the audience who loves the Olympics can not only feel the tension and excitement of the Olympic stadium in person, but also share the charm of competitive sports and the joy of victory with other audiences, and cheer for the Olympic athletes together." ”
In recent years, sports competitions, e-sports competitions, concerts, operas, stage plays, etc. have been introduced to the big screen through live broadcasts, and offline activities such as concerts, interactive children's plays, talk shows, and magic shows have also been performed in cinemas.
Now, audiences can watch the live Olympic Games in theaters, and more and more non-film content enriches the content supply of theaters and meets the diversified needs of audiences.
Theater to watch the Olympics, for the first time in history
How can I go to the cinema to watch the Olympics?
The audience can make an appointment to watch through the three major ticketing platforms of Maoyan, Taopiaopiao, and China Film Movie Pass. Taking cinemas in Beijing as an example, a minimum of 2 people can open, and different theaters have different ticket prices, ranging from 39.9 yuan to 80 yuan, and a total of 8 Beijing theaters have successfully opened the opening ceremony.
Before the start of the Paris Olympic Games, Wu Ying, manager of China Film International Cinema (China Film CINITY Store every day), received many audiences, including a group of players who love badminton, who took the initiative to consult and charter the venue to watch the Olympic Games. Now the cinema has come up with a 200+ seat CINITY-LED hall for the broadcast of Olympic events, and the ticket price is 45 yuan. In the table tennis mixed doubles bronze medal match + final held on July 30, the cinema quickly reached the opening number as soon as the film was released, and it was close to full, and another theater was added at the same time.
"In order to give the audience the best experience, we choose the best cinema halls. The price of putting together a movie is higher than the price of showing an event live, and the price customization is relatively reasonable. Wu Ying predicted, "Most of the games should have people, and at least dozens of people per game are okay."
The time difference between Paris and Beijing is 6 hours during daylight saving time. As a result, many Olympic events are broadcast live at midnight or early morning Beijing time.
For example, the opening ceremony is from 1:30 a.m. to 5 a.m., the first men's basketball group stage (United States vs Serbia) starts at 23:15, the women's volleyball semifinals are at 22:35, the men's final is at 0:00, and the men's basketball final is at 3:30. These game times are all abnormal working hours of the theater, so the theater also needs to cooperate with the adjustment.
Wu Ying told us that the cinema has prepared staff services for "zero point show" and "midnight show", and will set aside more time for the audience after the popular game, "Maybe everyone will be very excited after watching a certain event, or the Chinese team will win the championship, and everyone can express joy and hug each other in the theater."
In the cinema activity space of the CINITY store every day, table tennis tables and running tracks have been built and arranged to create an atmosphere of watching the Olympics in the theater, and a special package for the Olympics has been launched to provide a comprehensive and immersive viewing experience for Olympic fans.
Source: CINITY store every day
Cinema + Olympics, expand non-film content
This is the first time that the Olympic Games have been authorized to be broadcast live in domestic theaters. Fu Ruoqing, chairman of China Film, said: "This is not only a creative attempt by film technology to empower the Olympic Games, but also a further exploration of non-film content linked by Taiwan Film and the diversified development of innovative and empowered cinema functions." ”
Domestic cinemas have always needed to solve the pain points of over-reliance on film content and single revenue structure, and diversified and differentiated operations are becoming the development direction of cinemas.
Cinemas can not only show movies, but also need to supplement non-film content, so as to promote the new format of cinema operation and improve the comprehensive service capacity.
In addition to the "Cinema to Watch the Olympic Games" activity, China Film introduced the Vienna New Year's Concert to domestic theaters for the first time at the beginning of the year, landing on 100 screens of Wanda Cinemas, and also held a number of live broadcast activities such as the Spring Festival Gala and live public welfare activities in dozens of theaters across the country.
From May to the end of July, 300 screening units in 24 cities across the country will organize appointments to screen 14 classic opera films such as "La Traviata", "Teysi", "Carmen", "Nabucco" and "Madama Butterfly". In the future, the two sides will deepen cooperation in the promotion and distribution of stage art films, and the construction of new formats and new scenes for live broadcast of cinemas and theaters.
According to industry insiders, live streaming of sports games and e-sports matches is still a popular non-movie screening content in theaters, and the group of fans and game fans is relatively large, and their enthusiasm for admission is higher.
In the European Cup football match that ended not long ago, iQIYI Sports cooperated with Hengdian and Wanda Cinema to carry out live broadcast of the European Cup. At the NBA Finals that just ended in June, NBA China and IMAX China landed in designated IMAX theaters in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan for the first time in the form of live broadcast, bringing a zero-time NBA live broadcast experience to 5,000 fans.
In the past year, Tengjing Sports, which owns the copyright of League of Legends events, has established strategic partnerships with 16 leading theaters across the country, covering 40 cities and 508 theaters across the country in 11 key match days, with more than 90 million offline exposures and nearly 130,000 players buying tickets to watch the games.
The official said that in the future, there are plans to build distinctive e-sports theaters one after another, relying on the mature technology screen of the theater, Dolby sound and other technologies to bring e-sports players a more immersive viewing experience.
At this year's Shanghai International Film Forum and Exhibition, Chen Hua, general manager of Wanying Pictures (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., proposed that cinemas should be positioned as "public cultural and entertainment spaces". Vientiane Cinemas has gradually integrated the function of theater and vigorously supported children's dramas to be performed in theaters. Theaters can generally share with the performers, and if they don't, the income from venue rental is also considerable.
Last year, the Happy Blue Ocean Ledon Orchestra brought more than 90 concert tours to Happy Blue Ocean International Cinemas in more than 20 cities across the country, including Sky City Concert, Harry Potter Concert, Shinkai Makoto Concert, Mid-Autumn Festival Concert, Tang Yun Concert and other different interpretation themes, which received enthusiastic responses. Huang Bin, deputy general manager of Happy Blue Ocean Film and Television Culture Group, said that there may be more than 100 concert theater performances this year.
Compared with foreign countries, the supply of domestic non-film content is still in the preliminary exploration stage, and has not yet formed a mature and perfect normal state in the industry.
Fathom Events, a well-known content provider in North America, has a long history of bringing entertainment content such as theaters, operas, concerts, and live events to theaters in the United States and around the world. According to the report, the company's total revenue rose from $68 million to $93 million from 2022 to 2023, setting a record high.
United States NBC and IMAX have partnered to broadcast the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics live in IMAX theaters for the first time. NBC has also partnered with AMC, the largest cinema chain in the United States, to broadcast the Paris Olympics live in about 160 theaters.
The domestic "Cinema Watching the Olympics" activity has also taken a breakthrough step, but there are also shortcomings. For example, 19 cinemas in Beijing participated in the live broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, but not all of them were successful. At present, the events that have been screened in theaters across the country have not yet been hotly sold.
On the one hand, this was influenced by the fact that the opening ceremony and some of the events were held in the early morning hours. On the other hand, there are still many viewers who do not know about the event and how to purchase tickets by booking a screening. This requires the event party and the theater side to continue to expand the intensity of publicity and planning, and strengthen the guidance and popularization of the audience group.
"I hope that the more audiences come, the more they will share, the more technological innovation they will inject, and the more they will be able to explore the cinema, we will have new ways to explore." Manager Wu said.
The Olympic Games are held once every four years, and there is no normality and continuity, and it is difficult to predict how much the final box office revenue of the first "Cinema Watching Olympics" will be in the country, but the level of revenue is not the most important consideration at present, the important thing is the formation of this movie-watching model.
We also look forward to the "Cinema Watching the Olympics", driven by the "Cinema Watching the Olympics", more exciting non-film content can enter the cinema, enrich the diversified scenes of the cinema, and make more cinemas become a new type of cultural entertainment and consumption complex.