Imagine Cinemas: Effects of COVID-19

Find out here how the Coronavirus affected Imagine Cinemas, a mid-tier theatre company.

Imagine Cinemas Representitive: Stefan Kern - CHAIN OPERATIONS MANAGER

Question: Describe movie theatres prior to pandemic in terms of pricing, organization, cleanlines, food quantity/quality/audience/ revenue. Compare to today.

Answer:

"Our prices certainly were a bit lower before the pandemic, however they haven’t changed drastically. We’ve taken into account the additional labour that’s needed to check vaccine certificates and the added cleaning requirements to keep our theatres safe along with the extra cleaning products and PPE we need to buy on a regular basis, but we’ve remained incredibly competitive with pricing. Attending a movie is still one of the cheapest activities anyone can physically participate in this day and age. We have had to scale back on our concession offerings slightly as our overhead from concession stock certainly can become a big liability should our attendance volume not be as high as we’d like or if the government were to ever force us to close our doors again. Focusing on core products allows us to mitigate bloated overhead but also to focus on high profit margin items such as popcorn and soft drinks. Organizationally we haven’t changed. We’ve been very fortunate to retain the large majority of our teams prior to the pandemic and our Head Office staff has not changed at all since before COVID."

Question: How did the the original quarantine impact theatre revenue/box office?

Answer:

"We had 0% revenue when we were forced to close our doors in March 2020. For essentially 14 months, movie theatres in Canada were completely unable to generate any revenue. Movie theatres have been one of the hardest hit industries anywhere on Earth due to the pandemic."

Question: How long do you think it will take for the theatres to recover financially and environment?

Answer:

"While we’ve certainly seen some great progress with our attendance since reopening in full in July 2021, our industry really relies on consumer confidence. When case numbers across the country are low, more people attend. When there’s a new variant and case numbers rise, our attendance takes a hit. While there hasn’t been a single COVID outbreak associated with a movie theatre anywhere in the country and to my knowledge anywhere on Earth, people can still be hesitant to frequent any space that’s being shared with strangers. Our strict adherence to checking vaccine certificates for all of our guests goes a long way with helping create that confidence, but our industry will not fully recover until this pandemic is fully behind us. We’re expecting our recovery to take a good 2 – 3 years once emergency measures have been fully lifted."

Question: If gone back into lockdown, how will your theatres be affected, based off different time periods?

Answer:

"If theatres were forced back into lockdown, we would go back to 0% revenue all over again. There’s really no other way to describe how debilitating it is to have a business that employs hundreds of people nationwide to all of a sudden not be able to make a penny."

Question: How would movie theatres cope with another lockdown? Would they be able to survive? How long?

Answer:

"Most midsize to small theatre operations would not survive another lockdown of any significant duration (3+ months). There have been countless movie theatres across the nation that will never open their doors again after the first lockdown, let alone if a second major one were to occur. We even had to close a location during the pandemic due to monetary constraints. Government financial assistance programs for businesses heavily affected by the pandemic have been a lifeline to movie theatres, but there’s only so much money to go around and it’s unclear what assistance there would be from a provincial or federal level should another lockdown occur. Fortunately there’s been very little indication that another lockdown will happen as Canada’s vaccine rate is now well above 85% for people eligible to receive a vaccine."

Question: What measures have you taken to ensure safety from Covid?

Answer:

"We’ve ensured that our staff are equipped with all of the necessary PPE, have constructed plexiglass barricades at our concession counter, ensured that there is social distancing amongst each group purchasing tickets, have installed multiple hand sanitizing stations throughout our buildings, shut down every other bathroom stall and sinks to give adequate social distancing in washrooms as well, provided ample training documentation to our staff, upgraded our cleaning products so that we have products that kill COVID on contact, improved our cleaning procedures in theatres, and implemented a digitized cleaning compliance program with cellphones and QR codes in various locations throughout each building. As mentioned before we’re also extremely strict with checking vaccine certificates for all guests and require all guests to have a mask on regardless of any possible health or religious exemption to wearing a mask."

Question: How were employees supported during this time?

Answer:

"I can’t comment on Human Resource related questions."

Question: How do employees feel about the action taken?

Answer:

"I can’t comment on Human Resource related questions."

Question: Did the theatres have to downgrade any services?

Answer:

"We have not downgraded any of our services at any location. We still purchase the same quality of products and equipment as before the pandemic. Failure to do so would result in a less than stellar guest experience which we’re not willing to compromise on."

To sum up what was stated in the interview, Canada's sudden lockdown in March, 2020, resulted in movie theatres' failure to generate any revenue For about 14 months. Since movie theatres reopening in late September, 2021, Imagine Cinemas has taken serious measure in keeping their theatres clean and safe against the Coronavirus. Imagine Cineams has also been scalling back on concession items (candies) and are directing their attention more towards the core products such (popcorn). Luckily for them, there was no issue of having to cut back or downgrade on any services and were able to function at full capacity while seeling items at a low volume to ensure Covid safety. Being a mid-sized theatre chain, Imagine Cinemas expects to completely recover financially within the next 2-3 years. This interview was taken before the Omicron variant came into the picture, so now, it is safe to make the assumption that if gone into another lockdown exceeding three months, it would probably take a year or two more than planned to completely recover. If matters get worse, Imagine Cinemas might have to face the issue of bankreuptcy and shut down all nationwide theatres permanently. Unfortunately, due to HR rules Mr. Kern wasn't able to communicate the way in which the employees were supported during the pandemic.