Cost of Cinema Spectatorship over 11 Years

Published on September 5, 2012 - 10:00am by Aaron Weiss

I have recently stumbled across a movie stub from 2001, although I’m humbled by this artifact as it was for Legally Blonde.

But I’m fascinated by the price. It was a Sunday afternoon matinee for $5. Today, the 2012 matinee ticket price at my local suburban AMC movie theater is $8. That’s a 60% price increase, and that fact got me wondering. If only the AMC Stubs program existed then.

Cost of Cinema Spectatorship over 11 Years [1]
	2001	2012	% Increase
Matinee ticket	$5	$8	60%
Price of a loaf of bread[2]	$1.82	$2.36	29.6%
Federal Minimum Wage[3]	$5.15	$7.25	40.7%
Yearly Domestic Box Office Gross[4]	$8,412.5	$7,459.0[5]	unavailable
Avg Yearly Ticket Price[6]	$5.66	$8.02	41.7%

This small sample of prices only creates an idea of how prices have increased over the years, and does not take into consideration inflation.

[1] Not adjusted for inflation

[2] http://www.thepeoplehistory.com

[3] http://www.dol.gov/WHD/

[4] http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/

[5] Through August 27^th, 2012

[6] http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/

Comments

ColumbiaMom

#1 Reply to this comment | December 3, 2012 - 7:26pm

AMC has early matinee prices in the Tampa area for $6 compared to their evening rates of $10.50. And for our church group, they are giving us $5 tickets to see "The Hobbit" on opening weekend.