MOVIE PICTURE HOUSES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5021, 1 September 1926, Page 2

MOVIE PICTURE HOUSES.

GROWTH AT AUCKLAND.

THE BEST SERVED CITY.

The growth of the moving picture entertainment is- one of the amazing phases of Auckland’s progress in recent years. It is indeed questionable whether the growth has not been too prodigal. Twenty years ago there was not a single picture theatre in Auckland. To-day there ate 38, representing £850,000 worth of invested capital.

While owners of old-established ‘kinemas are proclaiming that saturation point has been reached; the building of 'further new picture theatres is contemplated. With the construction of the Williamson Picture Theatre in Queen Street and the erection of the proposed picture house in Remuera Road, it is certain that the total amount of capital invested in Auckland kinemas will run into £l>000,000. This is a gigantic figure for a city of 192,000 people. It means that Auckland is the / best served city either ,in New* Zealand or Australia as far as picture theatres are concerned. Each night the combined Auckland picture theatres have 33,000 seats to sell, or 198,000 in a week, so that if every person in Auckland, including babies, went to kinemas once a Week there would stili be 6000 seats which would never be sold. As it is, people who go to pictures weekly number about 60,000, so that approximately 138,000 seatsi, or twd-thirds of the total seating capacity, go vacant

every week. A defensive movement has been simmering in Auckland for some time past, but only really developed into a working agreement a few days ago. This understanding among exhibitors prepares the way for m-utuSJ consultation regarding the kind of pictures best suied to particular theatres, and is designed to prevent film prices from being forced up by cut-throat competition among showmen, while it achieves- the same object as the P°*ol in vogue in Christchurch and Dunedin. This agreement among Auckland exhibitors is nothing more than ah understanding, and doesi not involve, a,s in the Dunedin and Christchurch cases, the pooling of resources and cotatrol of film purchases, advertising, and other phases of business by a joint governing board.