Screening for more?

When the Israeli-based Cinema City swallowed up South African Ster Century's four multiplex cinemas in Poland in summer this year, it was another sign that the multi-screen cinema market could be very ruthless. The operators left still have ambitious plans, but rather than pile in on top of one another, some are looking to establish stronger identities for themselves.

Now the biggest multiplex operator in Poland with 110 screens, Cinema City's acquisition of the Ster Century cinemas, meant particular intensification of its activities in Warsaw, where the latter had three multiplexes in big shopping centres, (Galeria Mokotów, Janki and Promenada), bringing Cinema City's total in the capital to five. It had also signed an agreement, in February 2001, with the Canadian Imax Corporation which made it exclusive operator for the giant screen IMAX theatres in Poland. All this it has accomplished in just two years on the Polish market and is but one of the indicators that the multiplex business is for very aggressive risk-takers only.

Handling the investment
Some would argue however, that operators have over-reached themselves in what is after all, still a young market for a brash, Western-style leisure culture. Peter Evans of Lambert Smith Hampton maintains that cities in Poland, are "over-screened". "The market has been sewn-up by very few players," he says.
Artur Nowakowski, newly appointed Director of Galeria Mokotów and immediately before, President of the Management Board of Kinepolis, the Belgian-based creator of the 'megaplex' concept, couldn't disagree more. Claiming that the Polish market "is still at the development stage", he compares it to that of Spain: "Poland, with a population of around 40 million has only 1,000 screens, Spain, with a similar number of people has 3,500". Lower incomes here, he acknowledges, don't allow for Spanish levels of 'screening' for some time, but in the next ten years he doesn't see why the figure of 1,000 can't be significantly enlarged. "It's not about how many screens you have," he argues, "but how you handle the investment. In Warsaw, up to 6-7 million tickets can and have been sold annually. Without the cinemas, would these sales be possible?"

Megaplex
Not all multiplexes are approaching the market in the same way either. Nowakowski's former employers Kinepolis and their 'megaplex' in Poznan, the largest cinema in Poland with 20 screens, promote themselves as offering the 'Kinepolis experience', which seems to be an attempt to captivate audiences with the whole cinematic phenomena. Each 'megaplex', (there are several around Europe), is an enormous 'stand alone' structure, invariably situated on the outskirts of a city.

Not the biggest...
Silver Screen World Cinemas claim they depart from the multiplex norm as well. Currently with three, in Warsaw, Gdynia and Łódź, (29 screens in all), they are committed to stationing their cinemas in small mixed-use centres such as Europlex in Warsaw, and avoiding the large suburban retail centres. "People often go to the cinema in a big shopping centre incidentally, after they've visited the stores. We feel we attract more sophisticated audiences, people who choose the films they want to see more carefully," says Marketing Director Roman Jarosz. This is the main reason they are focused very much on city centres, where they believe it is easier to attract real cinema buffs.
Unlike Kinepolis, size for Silver Screen, isn't everything, "we don't aim to be the biggest," says Jarosz, "just maybe the best". In 2003, after what has been a lull of two years, expansion will resume with construction of a cinema in Kraków city centre, a 'stand-alone' theatre (and hotel) this time, developed by Portico Development. "It will be unusual for Kraków," says Jarosz, as currently the only competition in his opinion, is between two Cinema City multiplexes and one Multikino, outside the city centre.