Empire Cinemas has collapsed into administration with the immediate loss of 150 jobs. Six cinemas in the chain have closed, with a further eight under threat. Administrators BDO said the impact of the Covid pandemic and the cost of living crisis had “significantly affected the companies’ business”. Last month rival chain Cineworld, also fell into administration, hit by the pandemic and competition from streaming.
The Empire cinemas that closed on Friday are in Bishop’s Stortford, Catterick Garrison, Sunderland, Swindon, Walthamstow, and Wigan. The closures leave Sunderland and Wigan with no main cinema. Meanwhile, the remaining sites in Birmingham, Clydebank, High Wycombe, Ipswich and Sutton, and the two Tivoli-branded venues in Bath and Cheltenham, will continue to trade as the administrators look for a buyer. Staff apparently turned up for work at branches on Friday to find notes on windows explaining they were closing down, according to local media reports.
BDO said the cinemas employed a total of 437 staff across England and Scotland. It said gift cards, ticket e-codes, guest passes and readmission tickets will continue to be valid at trading cinema sites. Advance ticket purchases at sites which have closed will be automatically refunded. Cinema-goers have been reacting to the closures on social media. One said they were sorry to read about the Sunderland branch closing, “but when it’s almost £5 for a regular coke let alone the price of admission constantly changing I’m not surprised that this complex has closed”.
“It’s not just Covid that’s caused this, not when there’s a cost of living crisis, people just don’t have the money these days.” Empire Cinemas was founded in 2005 following the mergers of Odeon and UCI, and Cineworld and UGC. The Office of Fair Trading ruled that both new groups should lose a number of their cinemas which created an opportunity for Empire Cinemas to be created. Until the closure of the six cinemas on Friday, the chain showed films on 129 screens, including on IMAX and IMPACT screens.
