(I’ve finally got the companion website working. It has cool interactive charts! Some of which I use in this post. But you can also search for any movie and get its daily box office, or compare two movies at the same time. I’m working on improving those and adding more stuff - would love suggestions.)

The Dissolve had an interesting article this morning about average movie ticket prices over time. I wanted to give some more depth to that and visualize how the average movie ticket price has really changed over time, and how that compares to the number of tickets actually sold each year.

(I also covered this at the end of 2013.)

A few disclaimers for the data:
1. To include 2014, I scaled the Tickets Sold number using the percentage of the year we’ve gone through so far (so if the exact trend were to continue through the rest of 2014). Imperfect, but it’s just for comparison’s sake.
2. I didn’t include data before 1989. According to the NATO (National Association of Theater Owners) website, prior to 1989, they’re just using CPI.
3. To inflation adjust ticket prices, I used the CPI index and scaled to 2014 dollars. (Thanks to The Dissolve commenter who mentioned using inflation-adjusted numbers.)

Here’s what I found -

Ticket prices have increased in most years. (Blue line on that graph.) Not a huge surprise - that’s the general consensus. Not only are regular tickets more expensive, so the thought goes, but now we have premium (3D, IMAX, RPX, similar scams) tickets too.

But, adjusted for inflation, ticket prices have barely increased. (Same graph, red line.) Adjusted for inflation, the average ticket price in 1989 was $7.59. In 2014, it’s $8.12. That’s a 7% increase - as in, not a huge change at all. The problem with this dataset is obviously the lack of granularity - New York City tickets are probably increasing more dramatically, likely due to rent increases well above inflation - but this gives you an idea for across the US.

Year over year, the change in price is slowing down. Year-over-year change in prices peaked in 1999. The 2013-2014 change in price was the lowest since 1993 (adjusted for inflation, 2011 was lower - but both were negative). This could be a result of the shift toward streaming, VOD, etc. - but it’s still very slight.

But people are going to the movies less. Number of tickets sold peaked in 2002 ( Spider- Man, Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter , and My Big Fat Greek Wedding were the top five movies that year - all five of which, if adjusted for ticket price increase, would’ve been the top movie of 2014). The assumption that the end of 2014 will keep pace with the rest of the year isn’t fair - The Hunger Games , Interstellar , and The Hobbit (among others) will likely be big enough hits. But the trend is pretty clear - steady increase from 1991 to 2002, steady decrease since then.

The picture isn’t as bad as I was led to believe - tickets aren’t really that much more expensive. But it’s not great, either - people are just going to the movies less. There’s more to say on this; would love to hear anyone’s thoughts.