Pathé cinema chain launches offers for private customer needs in the crisis
Against the backdrop of challenging market conditions for movie theater chains, the Pathé theater chain is working to reinvent the movie theater experience: In the future, the chain’s theaters could be rented for private events, Pathé Switzerland announced on Monday.
The cinema chain has been testing the so-called "Personal Ciné" in Ebikon in Lucerne and Spreitenbach in Aargau since last summer. Now Pathé Switzerland is launching the service at four more locations in Basel, Bern, Dietlikon ZH and Geneva.
"The demand for renting complete movie theaters for private use was so great that we are now expanding the test," Pathé spokesman Torsten Wagner told the Keystone-SDA news agency.
He doesn't give any figures, only: "We have bookings every day," when the cinemas aren't closed because of the pandemic. Wagner says it's interesting that 80 percent of the bookings come from women who want to give a cinema event to their family or friends as a gift. The cinemas are then used for game events, for example "Nintendo Super Mario on the big screen," says Wagner.
Movies in original language
The reason for the introduction of such an offer is that the Pathé Group is adapting to "changing market conditions and customer wishes," according to the communiqué. Against this backdrop, another pilot project is underway: last fall, the cinema chain announced that it would offer films in the original language.
Pathé Switzerland is responding to the needs of foreign communities in Switzerland. Last weekend, for example, a Russian film was shown in Geneva for the Russian community there, says Wagner. This offer also met with a "great response" and was very diverse in terms of the languages in which films were shown. Wagner says, "This project will also continue."
In the fall, it was announced that Pathé Switzerland planned to have one auditorium in half of all its cinemas in Switzerland showing films in the original version by the beginning of 2021. The cinema chain has all seven cities in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland where it operates cinemas on its radar screen. (SDA)
