The 2019 ECA Slate and Insights Day took place on 17 January at VUE West End, London and featured presentations of upcoming content and data insights on recent trends in event cinema, as well as serving as a great platform for the association to present their new direction and strategic plans for the coming period.
Brian Message (Artist Manager & Partner, ATC Management), kicked off the day with a keynote on why music-based content is a growing trend at the event cinema box office. Comscore’s presentation that followed looked into key performing titles of 2018 and highlighted that it had been event cinema’s biggest year to date. Moreover, the premise for another successful year for event cinema had been established with Andre Rieu’s 2019 New Year Concert already becoming the highest-grossing concert title of all time in the first weekend of 2019.
The slate presentations on the day confirmed that there is so much more to look forward in 2019, from events involving music, dance, theater, gaming and e-sports to productions about the life and works of the biggest artists in history.
The event also provided a great opportunity to get a better understanding of event cinema audiences through a number of presentations. Showtime Analytics looked into key trends in cinemas concerning event cinema audiences and how to improve targeted marketing to local audiences, Powster shared insights into the online behaviour of event cinema costumers, while Screen Moguls looked into how non-cinema-going behavior can identify new audiences.
The event came to a close with the ECA Box Office Awards, recognising the highest-grossing box office events in each genre category (opera, theater, ballet and music) and also giving special appreciation to two highly commended events from 2018: Cliff Richard Live: 60th Anniversary Tour, by CinemaLive and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie by More2Screen.
We are already looking forward to the next edition, scheduled to take place in Brussels in September 2019.