Cinema attendance post-pandemic shows varied recovery across Europe; Hungary lags behind pre-2019 levels.
[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]
Post-pandemic, questions arose about cinema’s return to pre-coronavirus attendance levels, comparing Hungary to other European countries. In Hungary, attendance dropped sharply from 15.1 million visitors before the pandemic to around 4.3 million in 2020 and 6.1 million in 2021, though it rose to 11 million in 2023 before falling back to about 10 million in 2024 (a 5.9% decrease from 2023). While the market recovered significantly from the initial crash, it has not reached its 2019 peak. The number of cinemas also changed, increasing to 226 operating cinemas with 493 venues by the end of 2024, though over half of all attendance in 2024 occurred in Budapest. Across Europe, cinema attendance in 2024 was similar to or slightly lower than in 2023, recording 975.5 million tickets sold, a 1.4% decrease from 2023, and remaining far from the 2019 high of 1.3 billion visitors. France saw attendance reach 181.5 million in 2024, slightly up from the previous year but down over 12% from 2019, with domestic productions playing a significant role (44.4%). In Hungary, local films accounted for about 14.1% of the audience in 2024, up from 6.5% in 2023. Czech attendance stabilized around 13 million tickets sold in 2023, significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels of 18 million. In Greece, attendance was about 20% lower in 2024 (around 7.6 million) compared to 2019 (over 9.5 million), largely due to the adoption of streaming services. Regarding audience participation rates, Denmark led Europe at 52.4%, while Hungary ranked in the middle tier at 25.7%. Ireland showed a relatively better situation with five-tenths of its adult population attending cinemas in the last year, selling 11.6 million tickets in 2024. Spain saw ticket sales decrease from 104.9 million in 2019 to 72.9 million in 2024. External factors like the US writers’ strike and potential future trade policies are noted as influencing cinema attendance, though some predict a more promising year for cinemas in 2025.
