Cinema snacks!!!

Took a teen relative last week - popcorn and drink (about a pint!) cost £8.50!

Today DGD and I went to The Palladium to see The King And I , fabulous by the way, and the mini Haagen Daz ice creams were £4 each!

Granny (me) DIL, DGD, and Sis in Law went last Saturday afternoon to see Mamma Mia.

I took a 4 x pack of Cadbury's Wispa which cost me £1 in Asda and a bottle of lemon still water which cost me 29p in Home Bargains.

I'd already booked the 4 seats on line at £5 each. So £21.29 took 4 of us out for the afternoon.

I never buy edibles in the cinema, well only exception might be popcorn but rarely as I come out with it stuck all over me and looking a mess.

I never buy the expensive snacks at the cinema. The packets of whatever they are selling always seem so big. Also, I like to concentrate on the film and wouldn't wish to eat while watching.

I might buy an ice cream in the interval at the theatre.

At the multi screen cinema near me they sell a large box of nachos, covered with guacamole and grilled cheese. That, the hot dogs, the popcorn and the burgers just smells rank. And funnily enough,I never see anyone carrying the detritus out of the cinema and wonder if they just drop it on the floor for someone else to pick up.

All this eating and drinking at the cinema spoils the visit for me. Not just the crunching and slurping but the smell of popcorn and hotdogs. What also bothers me is that drinks are more and more being permitted in theatres as well. Do people not have a meal before or after visiting the cinema or theatre?

I know it’s dreadful went to see mumma Mia with Dd last week we have a Costa coffee shop in our cinema we went in there before the film started and had a coffee that was all we wanted.
Can’t stand all that munching and scratching about spoils the film.

Only when going to the cinema, not theatre,would we take sandwiches, bars of choc, nothing that' crackled'. What could be worse than sitting next to or behind someone scrunching crisps.

I took 2 of my grandaughters recently, and couldn’t believe either the amount of food/snacks purchased or the prices. What also amazed me was that after the film had finished, the floor was an absolute mess of spilled popcorn, wrappers, bottles and paper cups. I don’t think I have ever seen so much mess and litter just thrown down.

I like popcorn, but I’ve never brought it in a cinema after I read that the boxes they put it in cost more than the popcorn! Have you seen those huge sacks, probably cost two quid. If I do take gk I always buy something before we go in. Not much though, and nothing noisy!

I went to the cinema recently (hadn't been for ages). I quarter-filled a tub with pick-and-mix and went to pay for it. Was told to go back and fill it to the top as it was the same price - £4 !!

Rarely visit a cinema. Last experience put me off completely. Having to put up with the rustling of popcorn, the crunching of nachos, the smell of hotdogs etc as well as the constant distraction of arms going up and down to stuff the food in. Why don't folk realise they are being ripped off and no wonder there is an obesity crisis.

Beau is right, the calculation is £10 per head. Why are we getting so precious, the original Globe stood on 6 ft of hazelnut shells. Meat pies whatever was the dish of the day.
Get real, for many people none of it is much money.

It amazes me that people can't get through a couple of hours without chomping on something! I wear hearing aids and the rustle of sweet papers makes me want to scream and totally spoils my experience. I took grandson to the pantomime last year and at 10.30 in the morning most kids had buckets of food. Was this instead of breakfast? Grandson and I had discussed this before we went in and he was delighted to go for lunch afterwards

I used to take my kids to football, i paid for tickets, we didn't buy programmes, food, sweets etc. Nowadays a KitKat can cost £3!

I agree with you, it astounds me the amount of money people are willing to spend on snacks. However, I’m even more amazed by the size of the drinks and popcorn buckets. A sign of my age but I remember tiny little packets of Sunkist popcorn which presumably wouldn’t touch the sides of someone used to a litre of pop and a bucket of popcorn. I can actually manage to watch a film without eating or drinking anything!

We're taking our grandchildren later today. The cinema has an offer on, popcorn, small bag of sweets and a drink for £2.50. I don't think that's too bad. A cup of pick and mix is £3 which is quite a lot. Personally I don't eat at the cinema. I take a bottle of water in my bag, that's all.

I get really cross hearing people rustling sweet papers etc in the cinema. Can't people go a couple of hours without eating ? It's also those who try to suck the last bit of drink up through the straw lol

I love occasional trips to the cinema. Popcorn there is expensive, but our visit would be incomplete without it. We probably only go once a month or less. And really it's no different than when we go to the theatre and have a glass of wine in the interval.

took my 2 grandsons to the Jurassic park film y'day - was quite horrified that it cost over £50 for the tickets, some pop corn for each boy and a drink for each of us. I don't know how the vue cinemas can justify their prices and every single time I go I end up complaining about how incredibly slow they are when you buy anything. Y'day it took the lady 10 minutes to do the popcorn etc.......! Then we had to suffer 30 minutes of mostly inappropriate ( to children) adverts before the film actually started...............grrrr

I too have never bought cinema snacks, horrid and ridiculously overpriced. I always take a bottle of water in my bag and a few sweets. If I go to a lunchtime screening I take a homemade sandwich and as the cinema is usually fairly empty make sure I sit well away from anyone else. When the children were small they each took a small bottle or carton of juice and a sharing bags of sweets between us all. I was horrified some years ago when I took a friend of my son with us, as it was cheaper with 4 to get a family ticket I said he need not pay, he then spent the whole £10 he had been given on a bucket of popcorn and a pail of coke, he could hardly lift them! This was 15 years ago.....goodness knows what it costs now!

This is one of my real hates. I find a lot of people who buy lots of food and drink behave like they are in their own front room. They talk without consideration for others and make such a noise eating popcorn and unwrapping sweets etc. I wish they didn't sell all this stuff in cinemas, just the traditional icecream, it spoils it for everyone else.

I have sat through a film where one couple with two children kept sending the children out during the film for more supplies. Infuriating.

When I was teaching Media Studies my colleague went on a training course about film finances. At the theatre end the films are so expensive that the film houses make no profit on them at all so to hire a film to show costs 100% of the door takings. Some blockbusters cost the theatres 125% of the ticket sales so they have to amke their profits somewhere else given that they also have business rates, tax and employees' costs too.

The profit making end is in food. My colleage was told (ten or so years ago) that a huge bucket of popcorn costs one penny to produce s, if it retails at £3 there is £2.99 profit in it. And so on.

Goodness only knows how they make money on silver screen showing where they also give you a free tea and a biscuit!

Showings not showing.

I can't bear eating in the cinema or listening, smelling others chomping and so have stopped going to the one in our town that shows all the latest films. Instead I go to the small one at the university which doesn't allow eating but has a bar/cafe in the foyer where you can eat before or after the film.
Unfortunately we often gave to wait weeks/months for the newest releases. It seems to specialise more in old classics and subtitled films. Some are great but my eyes don't like subtitles now, consequently I don't go very often but wait until they appear on TV.