‘Covid has been the toughest challenge we have faced in our 25 year history’, says Sheffield cinema operator

Official box office figures from BFI have revealed the devastating impact that Covid has had on the industry – The box office dropped 76 per cent in 12 months from £1.2m in 2019 to £297,000 in 2020.

We have spoken with cinema operators in the city to found out how they are coping with the damaging impacts of lockdown on their businesses.

Cinema chain, The Light, has recently been awarded a funding boost that it says will help ‘protect the jobs’ of the 220 people it employs nationwide.

Sheffield’s branch on The Moor is one of 10 The Light cinemas to benefit from the funding by the British Film Institute in partnership with the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund.

Keith Pullinger, deputy chairman and founder of The Light Cinemas, said: “We want to thank everyone at the BFI and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for supporting us through the process to receive a grant from the Culture Recovery Fund.

"Covid-19 has devastated our finances, and this grant is essential to protect our future and ensure our survival. There is still a lot of work to do, but we now have a platform to start rebuilding our business from.

"Our landlords and suppliers will need to play their part, but this will help protect the jobs of the 220 people who are employed at our cinemas.”

Many of the cinema chain giants are likely to weather the Covid-19 storm, but for the independently run cinemas, the future is looking rather bleak with no source of income to keep them afloat.

The showroom cinema in Sheffield is hopeful of a return in the coming months, but according to the self-funded cinema, Covid-19 has been the toughest challenge they have faced in their 25-year history.

Ian Wild, Ceo, Showroom cinema said: “We are currently closed with most of our staff on furlough. We are keeping in contact with our customers and staff through regular newsletters and our social media channels. We have only been able to open for six weeks since last March, which has been really hard, and we are really missing everyone.

“As an independent cinema and a charity, we want to do more than survive. Our objective is to continue to present a diverse range of international films and events and to engage with all of Sheffield’s communities.

“We are mostly self-funded through our profits from our café/bar and the Workstation business centre, although we do receive some grants to support our cultural and outreach activity.

“We were extremely lucky to receive £536,449 from the Culture Recovery fund, which will take us to the end of March and have just applied to the Culture Recovery Fund Part 2 to hopefully get us from April through to June.”

He added: “We need our audiences support to enable us to continue to offer the wide range of opportunities for our community and be able to once again screen independently programmed films from across the globe."

“People can support us by pledging a donation, purchasing memberships and gift vouchers for when we reopen or dedicating a seat in one of our screening rooms.”