With the recent conclusion of Hollywood’s July blockbuster season, many families flocked to the big screen to witness this year’s latest releases. But summer 2020 showed a different picture. The pandemic forced the closure of movie theaters for an extended period due to lockdowns and social distancing measures.
During this time, movie theaters saw a national drop in attendance. Today, theaters are still struggling to rise back to pre-pandemic levels. National movie theater attendance in January 2024 was still 33% lower than in 2019 [1].
Figure 1 – Total number of movie theaters in Idaho vs. U.S.
Source: The Bureau of Labor Statistics QCEW and the Idaho Department of Labor
A decline in movie theaters
Nationwide, movie theaters have experienced a steep decline since the COVID-19 pandemic, as shown in Figure 1. Seventy-eight movie theaters closed within the first year of the pandemic and, at the start of 2021, there was an additional net loss of 119 theaters.
In Idaho, there was a similar trend. The pandemic caused the closure of three movie theaters in the state. Thirty-five of the movie theaters stayed open during 2021 but they started to close afterwards.
Movie theaters have not recovered since the pandemic. The number of movie theaters nationally has dropped 8% with 372 closures as of 2023. Idaho experienced five of those closures, meaning that 14% of theaters in the state were closed by the end of 2023.
Figure 2 and 3 – Idaho theaters by region
Some regions of the state have been more affected by these closures than others. Figure 2 and Figure 3 show southwestern Idaho, having lost no movie theaters for the entirety of 2020, began to rapidly lose movie theaters in late 2021. Three out of the five movie theaters lost in Idaho since the start of 2020 have been in southwestern Idaho as of 2023. The southwestern region has the clearest negative trend out of all the regions.
It is possible the higher number of movie theaters in this region made competing for the reduced turnouts more strenuous, leaving only the most innovative theaters to survive. This is opposed to a region like northern Idaho, where two or three movie theaters are likely to be the only option for consumers in the county, so are subject to less stresses in competition.
Figure 3 shows most regions having a consistent proportional number of movie theaters. For instance, movie theaters in the southeastern region hover around 14%. Eastern Idaho shows a slightly positive trend in the number of theaters since 2018, unlike other regions. The growth in the last quarter of 2024 can be attributed to the addition of theaters in northern and eastern Idaho, as shown in Figure 2.
Other regional highlights:
- The northern region was reduced to just one movie theater in quarter three of 2020. Recently, it just added two more, recovering back to its 2019 count.
- The eastern region had seven movie theaters before the pandemic. In the first quarter after the March pandemic began, it lost a movie theater, bringing its total down to six. The region has kept six or seven movie theaters since the pandemic, meaning that it recovered its number of establishments.
- The north central region lost a theater in 2020 but brought its total back up to three in 2022.
- The south central and southeastern regions account for the other two net theater losses in Idaho. While the southeastern region closed a theater in the first few months of the pandemic, it otherwise has remained steady and has yet to recover back to its pre-pandemic total. The south central region didn’t lose any movie theaters during the pandemic and only recently lost one in the last quarter of 2022.
The trend for movie theater closures is not as clear cut for other regions in the state. The south central and southeastern regions only closed one movie theater each since the pandemic while the northern, north central and eastern regions all recovered their total number of theaters.
Employment rates
Like the number of movie theaters, the number of employees per movie theater in Idaho also decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The average number of employees at Idaho movie theaters dropped from about 21 to a low of six in the second quarter of 2020. But unlike the number of theaters in Idaho, Figure 4 shows the number of workers at each individual movie theater recovered from its pandemic slump fully in 2023, even surpassing the previous five year high.
Figure 4. Movie theater employment
The number of jobs eliminated during the pandemic was substantial and this recovery indicates there is enough demand for movie theaters to support a full staff. A more detailed breakdown of theater operations in Figure 4 further shows the scope of the pandemic layoffs. Each bar in Figure 4 represents the range of the number of employees working in Idaho movie theaters.
Approximately 40% of Idaho movie theaters had between one and nine employees and 21% had no employees at all in 2020. These small movie theaters had been declining since 2018, but when the pandemic forced all movie theaters to run skeleton crews, their share of total theaters rose to 40%. After the pandemic’s conclusion, these small movie theaters once again decreased steadily to only 18% of theaters in 2023. This is likely due to a combination of large movie theaters expanding their employment back to pre-pandemic levels and smaller movie theaters closing entirely.
Among larger movie theaters hiring more employees, there was a partial recovery. For movie theaters with 10 to 49 employees, the market share rose from 36% in 2021 back up to 48%. For the largest theaters consisting of 50 to 149 employees, there was a complete recovery of market share in 2022 which was maintained in 2023.
Movie theaters appear to have recovered in the number of people employed but the size of theaters is evolving. There has been an expansion of very large movie theaters employing more than 50 people and a recovery of the smaller movie theaters with 10 to 49 employees. This suggests that many of the closing movie theaters have been smaller with less employees, while larger movie theaters have been expanding back to their pre-pandemic employment levels.
Employment for drive-in movie theaters
During the pandemic, drive-in movie theaters created buzz in national headlines for being the only type of movie theater that could remain open amongst social distancing measures. Drive-in movie theaters accounted for 87% of U.S. box office revenue from April through July 2020 [2].
Figure 5. Drive-in employment
This trend could also be seen in Idaho, as the number of workers staffing traditional movie theaters plummeted to just over six, the average number of employees for drive-ins stayed about the same, as show in Figure 5. This figure also confirms that drive-ins operate seasonally in Idaho, with dips in employment every year during the off season. While traditional movie theaters had to crawl back up to being fully staffed in the past five years, drive-ins saw no major change.
Drive-ins were less affected by the pandemic since these movie theaters are outside, so people could remain socially distant. Figure 5 shows no drive-in theatres closed in Idaho during 2020, but there were closures in 2022.
Furthermore, while drive-ins had their heyday in 2020, they may be losing steam post-pandemic as another closure was recently announced in July of 2024 [3]. This movie theater was closed for land development. Since drive-ins are often large plots of land with limited infrastructure like a screen, it is easy for developers to convert to something else [4].
This is quite different from traditional movie theaters where the land is unattractive for alternate uses because of the large amount of concrete used in construction. It may be the case that as the value of land increases, more drive-ins may close to make way for construction projects like housing.
What is being done?
The data appears to paint a picture of small movie theaters being subject to closures after the pandemic. This general decline isn’t just isolated to 2020 but also continues today. If theaters want to survive, they must adapt to changing conditions.
In Pocatello, The Reel Theatre struggled through the pandemic. The Reel Theatre was facing a permanent shutdown without the ability to show movies during the lockdown. It managed to survive with the help of the community and a temporary shift to curbside popcorn sales to lift revenue. At one point, the people of Pocatello waited in two-hour lines from their cars for a bag of popcorn. After restrictions were lifted, the Reel Theatre also focused on showings of older movies like Harry Potter to boost ticket sales [5]. This shift to re-releases isn’t just a local trend.
During the late winter and early fall, when ticket sales are typically at their lowest, national theaters have been showing anniversary screenings for classic films like 1999’s The Mummy or 1978’s Dawn of the Dead. This period of traditionally lower earnings is also being filled with indie films [6].
Larger theaters are experimenting with exclusive merchandise like AMC’s Dune: Part Two popcorn bucket or the Barbie corvette shaped bucket. Big theaters are also experimenting with a wider variety of concessions to improve the “premium” movie-going experience [7]. Audiences have signaled they are more willing to spend on tickets if they feel the experience will be improved by features like an IMAX high resolution screen, with Dune: Part Two and Oppenheimer having about 20% of ticket sales coming from IMAX alone [6].
Conclusion
Movie theaters in Idaho suffered an increase in closures during the COVID-19 pandemic caused by low movie attendance. This created a ripple affect where the state has lost a net amount of five theaters since the second quarter of 2020 with most of them being in the southwestern region.
There is evidence the movie theaters lost were smaller and unable to compete with the mid-to-large theaters. The drive-in movie industry, after emerging from the pandemic unscathed, is starting to feel the pressure to sell land. These past five years have been tumultuous for the entire movie theater industry; especially for small independent movie theaters.
For these movie theaters, community support will be vital. People have shown they truly value the community movie theater experience and its heritage in local culture, as seen in Pocatello. For larger movie theaters, there must be a drive to keep innovating as audiences demand a more luxury experience: something they can’t get from their television at home.
Brandon.Duong@labor.idaho.gov, regional economist
Idaho Department of Labor
208-236-6715
Sources:
A Look into Movie Theater Attendance Post-Pandemic [1]
One of Idaho’s last drive-in theaters is closing [3]
Movie Theaters Have Weird Real Estate. It’s Saving Them. [4]
Pocatello’s Reel Theatre Going Strong [5]
Movie Theaters Are Getting Creative [6]
The World’s Largest Cinema Chain [7]
This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor as part of the Workforce Information Grant (48%) and matched/dedicated funds (52%) totaling $704,259.
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