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Otago Daily Times
24-06-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
How are cinemas surviving?
By Ke-Xin Li of RNZ The winter school holidays are about to begin - the perfect time for a family trip to the movies. But with rising cost of living, the slow economy and numerous streaming options like Netflix and Neon, how are New Zealand cinemas surviving? Neil Lambert, owner of premium cinema chain Silky Otter is busy opening his eighth cinema. The new Christchurch theatre has bagels and fried chicken bao buns on its menu. Silky Otter Hollywood is set to open on Saturday, June 28. Lambert said hospitality was key to its success. "Wages have gone up dramatically in the last five years, and on top of that, rents are more expensive, food costs are more expensive. But if you look at the way that the ticket price has increased and how consumers have allowed the ticket price to increase, it hasn't gone up much. It hasn't gone up anywhere near in capacity to that [cost increases]. "Now as a business to thrive and not even thrive, to survive, you have to get an all-round hospitality experience. You have your customers come in the door, pay for a movie ticket - which we have to split with the studios - and it's quite a substantial split. So for us food and beverage are huge. That's why we have full service kitchens." Richard Dalton bought Auckland's historic Lido cinema 24 years ago. He said business at the theatre in Epsom was improving. "Business has picked up this year. It's still not perfect because I think the recession is still biting lots of people, but it's definitely showing signs of life returning back to normal." He said for Lido, it was not always the blockbusters that brought in the cash. "Every cinema is different, so if you talk to the guys at Events and Hoyts, I'm sure they would tell you completely different stories. For them it's all about the blockbusters and it's all about the first two weeks of business on those. "For us, we always pay a lot more money in the first week back to the film company and then as the weeks go by, the amount you pay back to the film companies starts to fall. "Tinā is still popular at six, seven, eight weeks into its season, so we probably made more money at the end of its life than we did at the beginning of its life. For us in this particular model it's all about keeping films going for as long as possible." Dalton said it was special to have movies like Tinā in the cinema. "Everyone comes out crying and you know they're loving it because they sit there for the whole credits. The credits are running and people are still sitting there sniffling, trying to compose themselves and talking. It's a real bonding film. It was such a pleasure to play." While Dalton's main audience are older adults, he thought it was important for cinemas to get children in too. "We got Elio coming up in the school holidays. We'll play things for very young children because often the grandparents might even bring them along. "I do feel strongly about this, so our ticket pricing for kids is just $10 and I kind of wonder why the chains want to charge so much for children's tickets. I think in these tough times, I think they've scared a lot of the market off by overpricing. Especially for a family day out, it becomes really expensive. "You got two parents and three children and popcorn and everything, you're gonna end up spending over $100 or something, which is madness. Children absolutely are the future, if you can get them at a young age and give them a good time and not scare parents off." For a Saturday morning show of Elio, it would cost $58 at the Lido for a family of four. But with up to $20 for a child at Hoyts and Event Cinemas, the same family could be spending $68 at Hoyts, or $113.80 at Event. However, Event does offer discount tickets to members of its Cinebuzz programme. Steve Newall, editor at the film and media website Flicks, said 2025 and 2026 would see a wide range of movies hitting the screens, and New Zealanders in cities were in the prime spot to choose their cinema experience. "I think the cinema offerings in some ways mirror the range of releases out there and that just as there are titles for different ranges of people, there's also price points that you can find. "A bit of research will really help a prospective movie goer. There are good weekly deals, there are certain cinemas that have specific discounts, and the loyalty schemes that the big chains have offer some advantages too." Matthew Liebmann, chief product, innovation and marketing officer at cinema technology firm Vista Group was a big fan of the cinema experience. "I've been to the cinema 24 times this year and we tend to go all around town, wherever the best time and the best film is." He was at Cineeurope, a convention for the cinema industry. He said the sentiment was shared at the convention. "This is an industry that reinvents itself. It doesn't put its head in the sand. It doesn't pretend that the world's not changing, and it's always looking for new technology and new ways to serve guests. So while the technology, the fit out and the food might be changing, that innovative spirit of exhibition remains the same."

RNZ News
29-04-2025
- General
- RNZ News
School breakfasts: 'A really great way to show our community that we care'
Emaa Shelford, Kiritahi Koroheke and Paul Marchioni are preparing the school lunches for the day. Photo: Ke-Xin Li It's 8:30 in the morning and a crowd of students at Melville Primary School are at the breakfast table in the hall. On this Monday it's scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast, with sausages left over from Friday's lunch. With their best vocabulary, the kids describe to me how their food tastes. "Amazing" and "phenomenal" are the terms they felt appropriate. Principal Bronwyn Haitana said breakfast makes a big difference, especially with attendance. "We used to have a lot of people away on Mondays and now Monday is probably our biggest breakfast club and it's just a really fun and happy place to be in the mornings." For the usual breakfast club, Melville Primary receives milk and Weet-Bix through Kickstart - a program co-funded by the Ministry of Social Development, Fonterra and Sanitarium. Last year MSD chipped in nearly $1.3 million for the scheme. The funding for 2023-24 was $1.266 million. Moko and Azaan say breakfast is a time they can spend with their friends. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Melville Primary also has fruit break - which is provided by Te Whatu Ora's Fruit In Schools programme. Te Whatu Ora spent $9,188,644 excluding GST on the Fruit in Schools programme over the 2023/24 financial year. Charitable organisation KidsCan also supplies cans like baked beans. "We sort of mix up from that Fruit in Schools, Breakfast Club, and Kidscan to make up the breakfast. When we have bread leftover from sandwiches the week before, we use that leftover bread for breakfast. We don't have very much wastage at all because we're always making sure that we have better ways of making that stuff used in other ways." Bronwyn Haitana considers her school lucky to be an internal model provider for the Ka Ora Ka Ako programme, which means her 250 pupils not only enjoy hot lunches cooked fresh at the school, but there's also a hot breakfast available at least once a week. In the kitchen is chef Paul Marchioni and his team. Marchioni learnt his skills by helping on the marae and knows how to make a crowd favorite. Emaa Shelford, Paul Marchioni and Kiritahi Koroheke are responsible for cooking for the 250 kids at Melville Primary School every day. Photo: Ke-Xin Li He spends the school holidays refining recipes. "I like to use our moko (grandchild) and whanau to have a try. It's funny as they're really honest, they'll just say, 'that was yuck'. They can provide some good intelligence. Unfortunately for quite a lot of our children, their parents actually can't afford to spend a lot of money on food. So they're cutting back on things like fresh vegetables. Some of the kids didn't even know what they were actually looking at in the lunch boxes that we provide. We have to hide those things that they're not used to eating. So blending and pureeing vegetables and putting it into the main meal, so they don't know it's there." At midday, the children are having pears for their fruit break. "It gives you more energy and you can be healthy," one student told me, and turned to ask his classmates what the fruit was. Arnia and Teiaea are on fruit duty. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Haitana said they use meals as an opportunity to educate the children about healthy food. "When they first started, they weren't used to eating the sandwiches and they were pulling out all the tomatoes and lettuce, and that was actually quite expensive. So we talked to the kids around seasonal foods and talked to them about why we have lots of tomatoes around this time. Now when we don't have tomatoes, they'll ask if tomatoes are not in season, and I'll say, yeah, it's too expensive at the moment. I think that's been really valuable because, before they sort of saw food as something that they just eat but not actually understand." Melville Primary School principal Bronwyn Haitana is in charge of handing out the lunches. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Some children were eager to share what they know about the meals they are having. "To keep our bodies healthy and to make our brains go 'wow'" and "to have energy to do mahi" are some of the answers. The school lunch break is at 1:20pm. While handing out the lunches, Haitana also checks the lunches that children brought from home and swaps out the unhealthy ones for a school-made lunch. This day, she swapped out one student's jam biscuits for chicken rice. Principal Bronwyn Haitana swaps a box of jam biscuits for chicken rice. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Haitana said while the internal model is a lot of work, she wouldn't give it up for anything. "I think I've also changed my attitude from food being just to feed the kids, more to it actually is a part of our school culture. We're an urban community. We do have a lot of people, who I would call displaced, such as people who not necessarily whakapapa back to the Hamilton area. We have a lot of Kainga Ora homes, which is great because it means they're out of emergency housing, but it just means that there are a lot of people who might not have whanau support around them. It's (food) a really great way to show our community that we care about them and their kids." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.