IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v210y2026ics0148296326002122.html

Optimal ticket pricing by seat location in the movie industry

Author

Listed:
  • Kung, Ling-Chieh
  • Chen, Yu-Hung
  • Hu, Chieh-Hsiang
  • Chen, Yu-Ping

Abstract

This study develops an analytical model to investigate optimal pricing strategies for movie theaters offering seats with heterogeneous viewing experiences. While price discrimination based on seat location is common for other performance goods, uniform pricing remains prevalent in the movie industry. By incorporating essential features of the movie industry, we determine that uniform pricing is optimal when the supply of prime-location seats is limited and the likelihood of consumers changing their minds before purchasing tickets is high. Specifically, uniform pricing creates perceived scarcity, which intensifies competition for preferred seats and encourages consumers to buy earlier. These advance purchases mitigate potential losses from consumer attrition and may offset the forgone revenue from not extracting consumer surplus. Lastly, this study examines the optimal seating design and suggests that theaters should offer only a moderate number of premium seats, even when additional capacity can be provided at no cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Kung, Ling-Chieh & Chen, Yu-Hung & Hu, Chieh-Hsiang & Chen, Yu-Ping, 2026. "Optimal ticket pricing by seat location in the movie industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:210:y:2026:i:c:s0148296326002122
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2026.116177
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296326002122
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2026.116177?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:210:y:2026:i:c:s0148296326002122. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.