17-hour marathons, contests and merchandising: Visualization of rooms continues to entice Generation Z

Nine days after the film festival temporarily dropped theater admissions to €3.50, CINESA locked hundreds of people into six theaters across Spain for 17 hours this Saturday. Some paid 60 euros for the VIP experience of the event. The claim is that this will not be repeated, although there will be something similar in the future to “create FOMO”, as we were told in the presentation of this series of experiences with which Cinesa wants to attract the Generation Z audience.

Its snowfall drops. Organized at Cinesa Room drops: Events with dates, powers and own rules that do not repeat. The first starts this Saturday, October 31 at 10:00 and ends at 3:00 on Sunday: 17 hours of horror films simultaneously in six complexes. The core of the action will be at the Principe Pio in Madrid: anyone who endures the marathon and correctly completes the kahoot tests projected on the screen will win ten years of free movies. Between movies, Paco Plaza and Terrors Nocturnes podcast voices will cross over, and the rest of the city will receive this content broadcast from the capital.

The price. Ticket prices, depending on the facilities they offer, are 29 euros (Survivor), 40 (Hero) and 60 (Final Girl). Of the latter, only 50 tickets are available in the whole of Spain, with clothing designed by Tito Customs as a gift. Felicia Berg, Marketing Director of Cinesa, assured in the press presentation that the Principe Pio sold out in just a few days and that Barcelona will have to open a second theater.

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In search of FOMO. Cinesa is a group that is particularly active in the search for activities that go beyond the traditional experience of cinema theaters: in 2017, when it was not yet common in the sector, it began to offer Merchandising And more variety of food including first events for the company; In 2018, the first LUXE cinema was screened, with reclining seats and other amenities; In 2023, unlimited flat rate. Also, in 2020 CINESA opened room rentals for celebrations to individuals and in 2022 it expanded to include video game console games on the big screen.

cost of improvements. Thomas Junckera, Director of Institutional Relations at CINESE, said at the time that LUXE theaters “lost 50% of our reclining seats to normal cinema seats”. That is, there is a tendency to improve the quality of the experience so that it is more memorable and unique, and the audience invests in both the appeal of the theater and the film. With the Cinesa Room, that philosophy is taken to the extreme, with a model, The dropwhich inherits its name from music and fashion. Venues have already tested the consumerist desire that drives scarcity with events like collectible popcorn boxes, but now what’s limited is the entrance.

Visualization of rooms. Cinesa is part of Odeon Cinemas Group, the European subsidiary that AMC bought in 2016. Already in 2023, AMC became the exclusive distributor of Taylor Swift’s concert film ‘The Eras Tour’, an operation that the company described at the time as the first step in a new line of business. And we’ve been seeing for some time how cinema may follow the path of music, which has resorted to the unexpected phenomenon of concerts when the physical format stops supporting the business.

Other marathons. The marathon, as a format, is not new even for Cinésa: on Halloween 2020 it chained seven hours of terror in four cinemas in Madrid for 13 euros. This Saturday, Science Palafox celebrates its second Halloween marathon in Zaragoza: five films starting at 11:59 p.m. What Cinesa adds to the room is packaging: prestigious curators, competing with Kahoot, Merchandising Limited edition and guarantee that the experience will not have a second chance.

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new generation According to Berg, young people devote 60% of their leisure spending to non-digital plans and 64% consider face-to-face meetings key to building community, although, when asked by a journalist, he admitted that part of the sample was up to 34 years old. Outside of Spain there are statistics that support this insight: a December 2025 report by Cinema United, the world’s largest exhibition association, says that American Generation Z visits the cinema annually from 4.9 to 6.1, a 25% increase. Of course, it’s this generation that turns showing ‘a Minecraft movie’ into a hooligan display of interactivity.

Sights of the house. It’s a case that came first: IMAX closes 2025 with $1.28 billion in global box office, up 40% from the previous year and a record for the company. They themselves define the format as “a platform for entertainment and events”. There are many success stories, howeverThe OdysseyChristopher Nolan’s ‘For example, went on sale for the IMAX 70mm session a year before release and sold out in one day, reaching £200 on resale in London. More screens, more incentives, more concert spirit to revive the increasingly depressed international box office.

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