Even with CinemaCon 2024 only one day in, this year, the regime at the National Association of Theatre Owners led by new president and CEO Michael O'Leary appears to making a concerted effort at more outreach to media about the convention's true focus and purpose: the interests and concerns of motion picture exhibitors, which are somehow largely ignored every year by -- in my decades-long observations attending and covering this convention most years since 2001 -- the non-trade press. In the first clear tactic to help right that wrong (of which, I must emphasize, I am not and have never been among the guilty), O'Leary and fellow key figures in the Global Cinema Federation, a worldwide group of cinema owners and organizations that represent exhibition’s global interests, held an hour long press conference on Monday afternoon to relay key statistics and information about the past year's business as well as field questions about a variety of concerns, from the evergreen topic of piracy and the new norm of acting as a complement to streaming services, to more recent issues such as rebounding from the pipeline-disrupting strikes last year. The wide-ranging and insightful discussion with O'Leary; Alejandro Ramírez, CEO, Cinépolis and current GCF chair; Laura Houlgatte, CEO, International Union of Cinemas (UNIC); Phil Clapp, CEO, UK Cinema Association and UNIC President; and Jane Hastings, CEO of EVT and incoming GCF chair, can be seen and heard in its entirety below.
Alejandro Ramírez, Phil Clapp, Laura Houlgatte,Michael O'Leary, Jane Hastings
(photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for CinemaCon)
Stay tuned here and on my Twitter and Instagram all week for ongoing coverage of all the goings-on at CinemaCon 2024!
(Very special thanks to Heather Lewandoski and the CinemaCon PR team for all their helpful and generous assistance at the convention, as well as Mitch Neuhauser and the CinemaCon crew and Harry Medved and the National Association of Theatre Owners)
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