Hong Yanwu was thinking hard about the future, and things happened to take a turn for the better. When he saw the crowds of people in front of the Caishikou Cinema, an idea quickly appeared in his mind - sell movie tickets!

So he immediately proposed to "Xiao Leizi" that he wanted to do this business in Caishikou Cinema.

After thoroughly understanding what Hong Yanwu meant, "Xiao Leizi" who was initially frightened was instantly relieved of his wariness and agreed without hesitation. And to be honest, he quite admired Hong Yanwu's inspiration.

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But on the other hand, after all, the price of movie tickets is too low. Even if you sell them for an additional 80 cents, how much profit can you make? Besides, there is a possibility that they won't be sold, and you will lose as much as you throw away.

Money!

So "Xiao Leizi" thought that he might be able to make a little money through this, but it would be quite difficult to support a family of thirty or so.

Then, when Hong Yanwu later proposed to share some of the profits with him, he completely treated it as a joke. Not only did he refuse very generously, but he also half-jokingly said that if Hong Yanwu and the others earned enough money in the future, they would not be able to survive.

, you are welcome to come to him for a meal at any time.

In response, Hong Yanwu smiled and said nothing, but patted "Xiao Leizi" on the shoulder affectionately.

Indeed, if he told anyone now that he could make money by reselling movie tickets, he would definitely be laughed at, saying that he was mentally ill, or, to put it mildly, that this guy was bragging.

This is a lifetime difference in vision and knowledge.

In this era, it can almost be said that people have no common sense in the field of business and economics. No one yet understands the principle of small profits but quick turnover, and the principle of accumulating less makes more.

I am afraid that everyone will not understand this until Yin Shengxi builds a huge business group by selling "big bowls of tea" at the front door for a few cents.

These days, no one understands the theory of speculation. They don’t understand that supernormal profits can only occur when demand and supply are not equal.

This point will only become clear to the general public when a dual-track price system is implemented in the future and "official corruption" becomes prevalent.

In fact, in Hong Yanwu's view, this business is comparable to selling sea cucumbers in Bincheng. It is definitely a gold mine with unlimited potential that needs to be tapped!

Why do you say that?

Because a good business is mainly composed of two aspects. The first is the market size, and the second is the relationship between demand and supply. The market is huge, with high demand and low supply. Of course, the best situation is the best, and the opposite is the worst.

Condition.

To put it bluntly, it is the simplest speculation theory that rare things are more valuable!

So do movie tickets qualify for this situation?

Of course it does! And it couldn’t be more consistent!

In fact, if we look at the market size, taking 1977 as an example, according to statistics, the permanent population of Beijing at that time was 8.71 million people. However, the number of moviegoers in the whole year reached 263,300.

More than 830,000 people visited.

Calculated, this means that everyone in the capital goes to the movies an average of thirty-three times a year, which shows how huge and prosperous the market is!

If we look at it from the demand side, people's spiritual and cultural life back then was also extremely scarce.

In the past era, watching movies was the main form of spiritual entertainment in people's lives, besides reading and listening to the radio. Not only students, housewives and employees of various units also loved watching movies. Young people also fell in love.

Love in the cinema.

It is difficult for people today to understand the love and enthusiasm for movies back then. If you have relatives or friends who experienced that era, just ask them how they felt about watching movies back then, and most of them will get this answer.

"If you know there is a movie to watch, then you will feel like it is a good day when you get up together", or "When I was a child, I went to the cinema and it was like heaven."

This sounds a bit exaggerated, but it is the truth. If you don’t believe it, you can confirm it from the details of people’s lives in that era.

Back then, people knew movie lines by heart. Everyone eagerly absorbed the characters and quotes in the movie. If you didn't understand them, you couldn't get along with everyone.

The most popular lines, such as "Let Comrade Lenin go first" ("Lenin in 1918") and "I, Hu Hansan, are back" ("Shining Red Star") are still said by many people today.

Others include: "Go ahead, I will be happy if you wait for seven to seven forty-nine days." ("War of the Flood"), "The spirit of the sky opens, the spirit of the earth opens, and the demons and ghosts leave quickly." ("Forest Fire")

, "Those who rush forward will be rewarded with three ounces of smoke!" ("Breakthrough of the Wujiang River"), for the sake of the party and the country, reach out your hand and give your brother a hand!" ("The Northern and Southern War")... These are also all

It has become a commonly used or even necessary language in people's lives. When used in a specific context, no one can understand it.

Even people's nicknames are all taken from characters in movies. Matsui, Old Fox, Six Hundred Work Minutes, Translator, Zhou Papi, Ma Xiaofei, Xie Laozhuan, Bai Taohua, Gu Shuhua, Bukharin...

In addition, there are even more exaggerated situations.

For example, sometimes, work units or schools will collectively organize movies to watch, and there will often be situations where a certain person is always in front of the plot of the movie. Such a person will speak the lines line by line. Before the character speaks, he speaks it first.

, the character speaks one sentence, and he takes the next sentence.

You know, back then, television was far from being part of people's lives. To be able to do this, you would have to watch the movie countless times, which was definitely beyond the scope of what normal people could understand.

What's more, there are still many people who pay an unbearable price to watch movies.

For example, some people climbed over the wall to watch a movie and got caught on the glass, resulting in injuries to their legs and feet, disembowelment or vaginal removal. Others chose to drill into the heating duct, but ended up being suffocated to death in it before they could come out. There are even more.

A situation in which violent impulses occur due to the scramble to buy movie tickets, and someone is killed or injured by mistake.

This shows how crazy people's obsession with movies was back then.

So, let’s look at the supply side. On the contrary, both the number of theaters and the number of films in Beijing are difficult to match the strong demand of the people!

When the Republic was founded, there were only 26 theaters in the capital, with a total of 16,433 seats. Not only were the number small, but the equipment was also poor. Among them, except for the "National", "Dahua", "Maggie" and "True Light", which were known as the first-class at the time,

Except for a few cinemas, most of them were converted from tea gardens, restaurants, theaters, entertainment clubs or small churches. Most of them were small, simple and dilapidated.

Later, because the people's government attached great importance to cultural undertakings, it tried every means to build, renovate and expand screening venues. So before the "movement", there were 69 public screening theaters in Beijing, with the number of seats reaching 56,504.

Unfortunately, there are not many "professional theaters" that can screen movies all year round. Most of them are "concurrent theaters" that can not only screen movies, but also perform dramas and cultural programs. For example, the open Workers' Cultural Palace, clubs, folk art theaters, or

It's an institution open to the outside world, a corporate auditorium, etc.

Even if these "part-time theaters" screen movies, they do not sell tickets to the public, and usually use organized ticket sales methods.

What is even more regrettable is that the arrival of the "movement" has impacted cultural undertakings. In the entire ten years, the number of public theaters has not increased, but has actually decreased.

Just imagine, when the "movement" is over, these more than 50,000 seats have been used to create more than 200 million moviegoers. What kind of situation will it be like?

In the same way, during the "movement", countless films were regarded as illegal goods that were blocked, funded, and repaired, and became "big poisonous weeds" that were banned from screening.

In the eight years from 1966 to 1973, only 20 new feature films were released in theaters in Beijing. The main ones released were "model opera" films and "Three World War" films ("Tunnel Warfare", "Mine Warfare", "Southern Expedition"

"Northern War"), political documentaries and "critical films".

It was not until 1974, on the eve of the New Year, that new domestic films were gradually released. However, the number was not large, and the political framework was too restrictive. Audiences generally believed that new films were far less good-looking than old films. Therefore, more and more theaters

In general, domestic films have almost become "box office poison".

On the contrary, imported films have successfully maintained the interest of the broad masses of people in watching movies.

Such as the Soviet movies "Lenin in October", "Lenin in 1918". Albanian movies "Coast Thunder", "Underground Partisans". North Korean movies "Pygmalion", "Apple Picking Time", "Kim and Eun Hee"

"The Destiny", "The Invisible Front". Vietnamese movies "Forest Fire", "The Road Back Home". Romanian movies "Danube Waves", "Boiling Life", "Explosion", etc.

The foreign films that appeared on the screen at the end of these "movements" finally made the boring cinemas lively again. People rushed to the cinemas and often had to spend half a day or get up in the middle of the night to queue up to buy tickets for these popular movies.

Even when "Flower Girl" was playing, there was chaos in the ticket hall of the Capital Cinema. There was a looting incident. Not only did the door glass break several pieces, but gloves, shoes, hats, and even watches were scattered all over the floor.

So such a jingle became popular in society at that time.

"Albanian movies are incomprehensible, Romanian movies are hugging, North Korean movies are crying and laughing, Vietnamese movies are airplanes and cannons, but our movies are all fucking news bulletins..."

As for now, we are in the transition period between two eras. It is precisely because there have been no good books, good plays, and good movies for many years, so the people's desire for culture and spiritual entertainment has reached an unprecedented level.

Therefore, when the cultural policy opened a crack, and some Chinese and foreign films before the "movement" were thawed and re-screened, people's enthusiasm for movies was irresistibly rekindled, and once again a hard-to-get movie was produced.

Phenomenon.

Of course, Hong Yanwu has no way of knowing the detailed data and specific conditions of the film market mentioned above.

But he knew one thing! From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, it was the most rare golden era for our country's film market.

The most powerful proof is that he still remembers that when the circulation of "Popular Cinema" increased from 500,000 copies in 1979 to 9.6 million copies in 1981, even foreign reporters would be stunned when they heard this number and said, "

No. 1 in the world!”

In addition, even now, he can clearly feel this heat in his life.

Forgetting the scene after the movie theater ended, he still remembered how proud Fang Ting had been when "Big Preserved Fruit" got two tickets to the movie, and how envious the others were.

He also knew that his neighbors Bian Jiangong and Su Jin ran out to watch a movie early in the morning the next day after they came back. But when they finally got there after lining up in a long line, they only had tickets for the afternoon.

As a result, both of them didn't eat. They used their meal money to buy three shows at once. They watched the same thing three times before going home. It was quite beautiful to be hungry. Afterwards, they even regarded this day's experience as a smart thing.

He promoted it everywhere and actually won recognition and applause from many peers.

So, do we still need to be skeptical about a market like this?

The most important thing is to consider it from the perspective of market operation. Doing this is currently a "blue ocean". No one has seen the benefits contained here, and of course there are no competitors.

And similarly, there is a void in legal management. The police and workers' militia simply cannot see this. The management of cinemas only focuses on maintaining order and catching fare evasion and counterfeiting.

To put it bluntly, even if you are really caught, the consequences will be much lighter.

It's neither stealing nor robbing. It's just a few cents worth of notes, and it's not like tickets like food stamps that can affect the national economy and people's livelihood. At most, it's just a crime to write an inspection and criticize education.
Chapter completed!