The 39th edition of France’s reduced-price movie ticket scheme, La Fête du Cinéma, has blasted through all previous records with 4.65 million admissions across the four-day event. The promotion sees movie tickets discounted to 5 euros each for all showings in participating cinemas (excluding premiums for 3D and other special screenings).
French exhibition org, the National Cinema Federation (FNCF), reports that attendance this year reps a 50% increase over 2023’s edition as well as versus those of the three years preceding Covid.
The Fête du Cinéma ran for four days — from June 30-July 3 this year — the format it adopted in 2012. (When it began in 1985, it was limited to one day, and over the course of time also included three-day and seven-day formats.)
The top films across the period — and despite distractions from tense elections and football — were Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2, which, through Tuesday, has grossed $26.9 million in the market; Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière’s The Count of Monte-Cristo, which world premiered in Cannes this year; and the Artus-directed smash hit Un P’tit Truc en Plus () which is still drawing crowds after originally releasing on May 1 in the market.
Along with its promotional partners, the FNCF ran a vigorous campaign for the Fête, notably on Saturday and Sunday, encouraging audiences to vote and go to the movies:
It worked a charm. Sunday June 30, there were 1.45 million tickets sold which marked the biggest overall movie attendance day in France since 2019, and the best for the Fête in 20 years.
On July 1, cinemas logged 800,000 admissions, 50% bigger than the same day for the last 10 editions. July 2 welcomed more than 1.1 million moviegoers and July 3 brought in over 1.3 million, the best score for the last day of the scheme in eight years.
Earlier this week, France’s National Cinema Center reported that moviegoing in the month of June was up 28.9% versus 2023 and was the best June since 2013. In total, admissions across the first six months of 2024 are 7.2% down on the same period last year.