Cinema attendance in Australia 2013-2023

In 2023, the proportion of Australians attending the cinema at least once per year was around 59 percent. Historically, cinema attendance in Australia has been around the 70 percent mark. In 2020 and 2021, the attendance rates dropped drastically due to mandatory closures of cinemas during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they have started to recover in recent years.

Ticket prices

Steady attendance in recent years can be attributed, at least in part, to there only having been small fluctuations in ticket prices. In 2021, the average price of a cinema ticket was 15.24 Australian dollars; an increase of one dollar from the previous year. Overall, average prices have increased by less than five dollars since 2007. Maximum ticket prices have seen similarly small fluctuations across the same time frame. The maximum price in both 2017 and 2018 (as well as 2013 and 2014) was 27 Australian dollars. In other years, and despite a 2011 peak of 28.50 Australian dollars, prices settled between 23 and 25 dollars.

Cinemas

An additional factor that has helped cinema attendance and keeping ticket prices low is the dominance of independently owned cinema screens in Australia. In 2021, there were a total of 706 screens that were independently owned in the country. By comparison, the largest chain by number of screens, Event Cinemas, owned 588 and Hoyts owned 388. Of course, cinemas would not attract visitors without films to go and see. The enduring popularity in recent years of Marvel films, amongst others, has also driven cinema attendance. In 2021, two of the most successful films at the box office were Marvel productions; Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which took total box office revenue in Australia of 9.42 million U.S. dollars, and Black Wodow, which took 9.18 million U.S. dollars.