2021 was a really bad year for Dutch cinemas. This was to be expected, given the months-long closures and the generous package of restrictive measures to prevent the spread of the corona virus. And yet the blow comes hard on Tuesday morning, with the presentation of the annual figures by the Dutch Association of Cinemas and Film Theaters (NVBF) and the industry organization Film Distributors Netherlands (FDN).
Only 0.8 tickets sold per capita: the lowest number ever recorded. The total number of visitors is also approaching historic bottom at 14.3 million: only in 1992 there were fewer. By way of comparison: in 2019, before the pandemic, the average Dutch person bought 2.2 tickets per year, and the total number of visits was approaching 40 million.
The death blow was the last and current lockdown, with the halls closing first at 5 a.m. and then completely, just during the festive and peak months. For example, 2021 ended even worse than the equally bad film year 2020: 14.6 percent in the minus and from 16.7 to the 14.3 million visitors. And that while the European countries surrounding us, where the cinemas will remain open for the time being, did book higher visitor numbers than during that first covid year.
‘The most difficult part is the uncertainty,’ says Ron Sterk, general director of the Dutch Vue cinemas (twenty units) and vice-chairman of the NVBF. ‘It will certainly take two to three years before we have some meat on our bones again. Dutch cinemas need to strengthen.’ As director of the Dutch branch of the English Vue, Sterk meets monthly with the directors of the other European countries. ‘Do you hear everyone: record this, record that. Only not us, we are still in lockdown.’
In 2021, Dutch cinemas were completely closed for a total of 24 weeks, a year earlier that was ‘only’ 15 weeks. Yet Sterk also sees a bright spot: ‘There were a few peaks in 2021, for example at the end of September and October, when things went very well for a while. No Time to Die (the latest James Bond movie, red.) was a huge success: that gives confidence. People really want to go to the cinema again, to enjoy a movie together in the best possible way in the dark.’
With 1,733,285 tickets sold, No Time to Die the best-attended film of the Dutch cinema year. Dutch films also performed relatively well, with a market share of 23 percent, 1 percent more than in 2020. The war film The Battle of the Scheldt attracted 507,685 visitors, Lice Mother – the Movie 470.114. The most-attended film in the movie theaters was the dementia drama The Father, with 124,891 visitors.
In a press release, the sector organizations NVBF and FDN emphasize the importance of government support for the film sector. But even with this support, the reserves of cinemas and distributors are running out. “The pressure is mounting,” warns Hajo Binsbergen, director of Warner Bros. Netherlands and FDN board member. “We thought: it won’t be as bad as 2020, but unfortunately.”
Binsbergen sees the fact that Dutch cinema-goers in the border areas are currently moving to neighboring countries such as Belgium and Germany, where the screens are open. ‘People want to return and they experience the cinema as a safe place. And rightly so: no source contamination has ever been detected in a cinema.’
He assumes that Dutch cinemas will reopen after January 14. “We have not formally heard anything about a possible extension of the current closure. There is no reason to: the cinema has been proven safe. The halls are also open in all neighboring countries.’