Ticket sales at UK theaters fell by ** percent due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. During the period from February 1 to March 16, 2020, as the virus began to spread throughout Europe, ticket sales decreased by ** percent year-on-year, resulting in a drop in revenue of ** percent. Theaters across the UK closed from March 16, 2020, following the government's advice for people to avoid gathering in public buildings.

Cinemas in the United Kingdom (UK) were forced to close towards the end of ** 2020, as the government introduced social distancing measures to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. According to forecasts from WARC and the AA, cinema advertising expenditure in ** will see a 100 percent decrease in growth compared to 2019.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Captures information on elective and emergency care surgery to understand the increased elective care surgery backlog from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This dataset pertains to a research project investigating the social, cultural, and economic consequences of COVID19 on independent arts workers, specifically in the theatre sector, across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The project recognised the unique vulnerability of this workforce in dealing with the impact of COVID19. Their workplaces closed overnight and their sector transformed as theatres moved to digital delivery, and their employment status (freelance) made them ineligible for the UK government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. The motivation of the project was to understand: the employment experiences of this workforce during the first 18 months of the pandemic; how the pandemic affected their planning for the future; how the pandemic changed their creative practices and skills; what impact government and sectoral policy had on the workforce; and to find strategies for government and industry to support this precarious workforce. This data collection includes survey responses (n=397) to an online survey which ran from 23/11/2020 to 19/03/2021,

Performing arts venues in the United Kingdom were negatively affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. Following the closure of venues to the public, ticket sales fell by around ** percent in April compared to the same month in 2019. Regulations began to ease in August with some venues able to start reopening with restrictions. However ticket sales remained in decline, with monthly sales in October falling by **** percent, prior to England's second lockdown in November.

According to a ********* study, full-length productions of theatre, dance, or music were the most popular type of digital content accessed in the United Kingdom during the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown in 2020. Roughly ** percent of respondents claimed to have watched digital content of this type. Meanwhile, more than half of the survey sample stated to have watched performances created "at home" during that time.

A May 2020 study identified the number of online searches for theater streaming platforms in the United Kingdom between May 2016 and April 2020. The number of online searches for the considered platforms remained stable prior to the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Then, at the beginning of the health crisis, there was a marked increase in online searches for all selected platforms, with searches for NTLive, for example, increasing from roughly ** thousand to *** thousand between March and April 2020.

A May 2020 study analyzed the number of online searches for long-running theater shows in the United Kingdom between May 2016 and April 2020. Within this period, the Lion King was the most popular show based on Google searches in the UK. Overall, online searches for all shows suffered a dramatic decline beginning in February 2020 due to the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Throughout 2024, cinemas across the United Kingdom sold approximately ****** million tickets, up from ****** million movie tickets a year earlier. Yet the 2024 figure is still under the number of admissions recorded in 2019: in the last year before the COVID-19 outbreak, movie theaters in the UK sold more than *** million tickets. Ticket price & box office revenue Despite the decrease in the number of movie tickets sold since the coronavirus spread, the average price of a cinema admission in the UK reached **** British pounds in 2024. But this was not enough to push the British box office revenue even further. In 2024, the figure stood at about *** million pounds, less than the ****-billion-pound box office revenue recorded in 2019. Success abroad According to another source, the United Kingdom/Ireland region is among the top five box office markets worldwide, with a revenue of approximately **** billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Yet the impact of British cinema knows no boundaries. That same year, the global box office revenue of films made in the UK added up to *** billion dollars, almost the double of the *** billion dollars amassed in the previous year.

In 2024, the UK box office revenue was 978.1 million British pounds, a slight decrease in comparison to the previous year's figure of 978.5 million pounds. While the year-to-year change in box office was exceptionally high in 2021 and 2022, following the unprecedented decline in activity in 2020 caused by the pandemic, that return to normal has considerably slowed down since. Frequency & pricing Since the pandemic, the annual number of movie tickets sold across the UK stood below 150 million for the first time in the 21st century. In 2023, the figure increased to 123.62 million. But that is still less than the 176 million tickets sold in 2019, before the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile, the average cost of a movie ticket in the UK reached an all-time high in 2023: 7.92 pounds, up from the 7.69-pound average reported the previous year. British blockbusters The highest-grossing film at the box office in the UK in 2023 was "Barbie", the live action adaptation of the famous doll. The British co-production with the United States grossed 87 million pounds at the box office in the UK, more than "Oppenheimer" and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", which came in second and third positions respectively. When it comes to the commercial success of British movies overseas, however, there is still a long way to go after the pandemic. In 2023, British films grossed approximately 6.1 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, more than four billion dollars less than the 10.3-billion-dollar global box office revenue recorded in 2019.

Performing arts enterprises' revenue in the United Kingdom grew significantly in 2022 over the previous year, following a sharp decline due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. After falling to under two billion British pounds with the onset of the health crisis, such enterprises' revenue bounced back to roughly 4.37 billion British pounds in 2023, nearly catching up with the figure from 2019.

In its first round, over 257 million British pounds of the Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) was awarded in grants to arts and cultural organizations in England in 2020. The CRF was set up as a government rescue package to support UK organizations during the coronavirus pandemic, including music venues, theatres, museums, and other art venues impacted by lockdown and social distancing measures. Organizations in London received the London received highest amount of the grant compared to other regions of England.

In 2024, a movie ticket in the United Kingdom cost, on average, 7.73 British pounds – a slight descrease in comparison to the previous year. UK's post-pandemic cinema market In 2023, the box office revenue in the UK added up to nearly 979 million British pounds, up from about 902 million pounds a year earlier. Despite the annual growth, the 2023 figure still has not caught up to the 1.25-billion-pound box office revenue recorded in 2019, before the coronavirus outbreak. Still, the UK made it to the top five box markets worldwide in 2023, just before France. Cinema attendance In 2023, movie theaters across the UK sold around 124 million tickets, up from 117 million movie tickets a year earlier. But, once again, the 2023 figure remains under pre-pandemic results: over 176 million tickets. But a British co-production was the most successful film at the box office in the UK in 2023. "Barbie" grossed 1.23 million U.S. dollars, making it the highest grossing movie of the year worldwide.

In 2021, the gross revenue of the filmed entertainment market in the United Kingdom amounted to approximately **** billion British pounds, up from the ****-billion-pound revenue recorded a year earlier. While the turnover of the theatrical subsegment increased to *** million pounds, the revenue of the pay TV market decreased to more than less than *** billion pounds that same year. Meanwhile, the revenue of UK's film industry amounted to ***** billion pounds in 2021.

The slow recovery of British cinemas

Movie theaters across the UK continued to struggle to fully recover their finances after the COVID-19 outbreak. In 2022, the British box office gross amounted to *** million pounds, a sharp increase in comparison to the previous year. Yet the figure still was under the ****-billion-pound box office revenue recorded in 2019. Similarly, the number of movie tickets sold in the UK grew in 2022, standing above *** million. But that amounted to about ** million admissions less than recorded in 2019.

A movie star on the global stage

Despite the slow recovery, the UK remains a solid film market. In 2021, it recorded the fourth biggest box office revenue worldwide, at around *** million dollars, tying with France. The British cinema industry is also one of the pillars of an even larger market: Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Since the pandemic, that region's box office gross surpassed the United States and Canada, collectively known as the North American movie market. That was the first time this happened since 2014.

Here we see information on the leading movie theater chains in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2019, ranked by market share based on revenue. Cineworld, Odeon and Vue, the leading three chains, accounted for almost ** percent of the exhibitor market combined. Cineworld had the largest market share at ** percent. A world of cinema in the UK Cineworld operations included *** cinema sites across ** European markets in 2019. In the UK, the cinema company also runs an arthouse cinema chain under the name Picturehouse Cinemas as well as Cineworld Cinemas, a chain of multiplex venues. Cineworld competitor Odeon took a close second place with a market share of **** percent. The Odeon cinema company, originally founded by Oscar Deutsch in 1930, is a subsidiary of the Odeon Cinema Group together with cinema chain UCI Cinemas. The cinema brand operated *** cinema sites across the UK and Ireland in 2019. The cost of cinema In 2020, cinema ticket prices in the UK decreased to **** British pounds on average. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the following cinema closures, the average annual cinema-going spending per head in the UK was **** British pounds in 2020, down from over ** British pounds the year before.