Last year, the O2 in London hosted Monty Python live, tickets sold out almost immediately and I personally thought I would miss out, but on one of its night, it was beamed live into both TV’s and Cinemas.
I had booked my cinema ticket, the wife isn’t a fan and a live show would surely be better with an audience, which it proved to be. Furthermore, when I got home, I found that the TV performance, going out before the watershed, had most of its naughty bits edited out!
These live performances are beamed onto our screens under the banner of being Event Cinema.
Also coming to the screen soon is The Winter’s Tale, via the London stage and featuring Kenneth Branagh and Dame Judi Dench.
The Royal Ballet Performance is coming via The Royal Opera House.
If opera is not for you, you could celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Rocky Horror Show as it was beamed into cinemas too.
The National Theatre are sharing Of Mice and Men featuring James Franco and Chris O’Dowd as well as the much anticipated Hamlet featuring Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict again features when the BBC are putting the Christmas Day episode of Sherlock in cinemas, in addition to TV as they did previously with the Day of the Doctor, the episode to celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who.
Music has been shared too, Jumpers for Goalposts featured Ed Sheeran and New World Towers will feature live footage of Blur.
Sporting events have also been screened in the past too, such as boxing!
It’s a wonderful variety, and for those who would find getting to London as a considerable expense, a cost-effective way to see the show.
Of course, cinemas do not miss out, they can charge extra for the prices of a ticket so can add to their running costs.
My question is this, could they do more? When I saw Python live, I felt they missed a trick, in that they surely could have got some merchandise in from the O2? Sell the programme for example, which they could surely do for the theatre events too?
Also, how about some of the other London shows that outsiders maybe can not afford or struggle to get too, I myself am surprised that for example, The Book or Mormon has not made the cinemas, and am sure there are many more you could think of?
One of the other things that I particularly liked was what happened when I won tickets to see an advance screening of Alice in Wonderland, the screening was at 6pm yet they opened doors at 4pm and shared the red carpet footage of the actors going into the premiere screening! Imagine how well a Star Wars or Hunger Games premier event could do, many internet providers such as Yahoo screen the footage so are cinemas missing a trick too?
What do you think of Event cinema? Do you want to see more or less on our screens?
We would love to hear from you here at Barking Mad About Films.
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