Ticket Prices: Telangana Supportive, AP Destructive?

The Telangana government has been fully supporting and cooperative of the Telugu film industry from the beginning. For biggies movies, the state government allows ticket prices to be hiked and also permits additional shows which does provide huge relief to the producers and exhibitors.

Now the Telangana government is set to hike the ticket prices on the whole. For the same a committee was set up earlier and after wide study, the committee recommended the state government to hike the ticket prices.

For theatres running with air conditioning, the hike can range from Rs 50 to Rs 150 while in multiplex the prices are suggested to be hiked from Rs 100 to Rs 250. The recliner seats in multiplex may cost Rs 300, if the government hikes the prices.

Also these increases in fares are excluding the GST, operational charges of a theatre/multiplex which means, on an average a ticket price may cost nearly Rs 125 in a single screen theatres while in multiplex it would be between Rs 175 to Rs 200.

The state government will take a look into the committee report and will discuss the same in the cabinet meeting before giving a final consent. Most probably, for the New Year, the hike would come into effect.

On the contrary, in AP, the state government is raiding theatres and in the last few days, many theatres across a few districts were either seized or voluntarily shut down. The state government is stubborn about ticket prices. Despite multiple meetings between AP government and producers, the state government continues to insist on lower prices and AP exhibitors are deeply disappointed with this attitude.