Subscription models are expanding across Europe with Cineville leading the cinema charge. Working collaboratively and learning from existing and emerging markets is key to creating a sustainable business model that reaches wider audience demographics and boosts visibility and attendance for smaller arthouse films.

A key trend in recent years, and something Europa Cinemas has supported adaptations of through the Collaborate to Innovate fund, is subscription models. The morning’s workshop saw presentations from four markets, beginning with Cineville in Amsterdam, which has now been operating for 15 years.

Samir Azrioual spoke humbly about their project, saying, “There is still a lot for us to learn from other subscription models in Europe right now.” What makes an effective model is collaboration: independent cinemas coming together forms a collective who can, with their combined efforts, become more attractive to young audiences and existing audiences, and increase the frequency with which they visit. One of the challenges for the Cineville model, however, is in balancing out the demographics to make the model more sustainable. Having two different target groups means having two different marketing strategies to reach them.

Younger audiences know about Cineville through friends and social media, but they need more encouragement to films they wouldn’t otherwise be attracted to see. This is where Cineville’s large content team come into play, writing about the films, producing e-newsletters and other targeted content. Conversely, the older audience love their local cinema and go more often once they’re a member. They are already loyal and so require more in-cinema marketing to widen their film choices. Overall, distributors are positive about the initiative because it helps them push their riskier film titles.

Mirjam Haas, Project Co-ordinator for Cineville Deutschland, said Cineville has recently launched in five cities in Germany: Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Nuremberg and Freiberg in August following pre-sales and marketing, which took place in June. For Haas, the focus has been squarely on the customer experience, ensuring communication is clear and that a customer service contact was set-up and in place from the start, “They’ve put their trust in you so you don’t want to leave them alone,” she said, emphasising the importance of having a functional technical set-up from the start so that it’s a smooth process for the audience to buy tickets.

Katrina Mathsson, Marketing Manager for Cineville Sweden, is yet to launch their project but have a very different market to enter into. In Sweden, there is a far bigger challenge in attracting younger audiences, where the “50-year-old woman” is the largest demographic, and the general climate of recovery post-pandemic is not as affirming. Securing funds from both the Europa Cinemas Collaborate to Innovate fund and from the Swedish Film Institute, they are nervous about the launch. In addition to getting cinemas, distributors and then audiences on board, there is the issue of financial forecasting and working out the pay-out structure. What eases some of these concerns is being part of a European subscription community whereby Mathsson can and has leaned heavily on advice and insights from Samir, and the teams in both the Netherlands and Belgium who have already overcome these hurdles. And the buy-in from cinemas has been positive too, with the arthouse cinemas belonging to a major chain signing up and the distributors eager to participate in the initiative, everyone agreeing that, “We can’t afford to say no to anything, now.” And so, the nerves are worthwhile, as Mathsson movingly put it: “We are building a community of film-lovers on a national level… it is a beautiful thing.”

Anna Haartweger, from KIZ RoyalKino in Austria said the Non-Stop Kino parallel programme that Austria has adopted, supported by Collaborate to Innovate, has been easy and effective to execute. Every step from installing equipment, strategising advertising and undergoing staff training has worked well. Though Austria is not yet fully integrated into the Cineville model, tech wise, Non-Stop has had an overwhelmingly positive response, from press reactions to customer sign-ups. Wiktoria Pelzer from Stadtkino said, “Covid kind of helped, because everyone became used to a subscription.” The figures in Austria speak volumes, with their one-week pre-sales already reaching 1,200 subscribers and, in 20 months, having reached 7,250 of and putting them on track to reach their two-year target of 10,000 subscribers. Their biggest group of subscribers is aged 24 and 85% of the cinemas in Austria are signed up to the programme.

There were some concerns, especially with a major distributor – Universal – not signed up to the programme, and with a small drop-off in subscribers over the summer months (around 200 people), clear communication has been key to their success. Providing they reach the 10,000 subscribers they are on track to reach by March 2025, they will no longer be dependent upon external finance.

The future focus for Cineville is to continue to iterate and to learn from other businesses and industries about what works best. Special events that allow subscribers to bring a friend, have added workshops or free beverages included have proved popular owing to audience expectations of subscriptions with further incentives and exclusive add-ons.

Samir said that Cineville are always working towards improving their work as they understand the huge responsibility they shoulder with 60-70% of a cinema’s revenue coming their model in some instances. But the model is all about working with cinemas and drilling down into the data to iterate and improve, “The unified structure of the cinemas decide on the most important things so every cinema has an equal vote,” Samir said, stressing the importance of working to increase visits among subscribers, “but there is a difference in the pay-out because we pay-out per visit so the bigger cinemas will have more.”

Photos courtesy of Gediminas Gražys