Hong Yanwu was thinking hard about what would happen in the future, and things just took a turn for the better. When he saw the crowd at the entrance of the Caishikou Cinema, an idea quickly appeared in his mind - pour movie tickets!

So he immediately took the opportunity to propose to "Little Leizi" that he wanted to do this business in the Caishikou Cinema.

When he completely understood what Hong Yanwu meant, the "little thunder" who was originally taken aback, was instantly discouraged and agreed without hesitation. And to be honest, he quite appreciates Hong Yanwu's inspiration.

It's just that on the other hand, after all, the price of movie tickets is too low, even if the price is increased by eight cents, how much profit can be made? Besides, there is still a possibility that it cannot be sold, and how many tickets you smash in your hand is how much money you lose!

Therefore, "Xiao Leizi" thinks that he may be able to make a little money by relying on this, but it may be quite difficult to feed more than 30 people.

Then, when Hong Yanwu then proposed that he could share some profits, he listened to it as a joke. Not only did he resign very generously, but he also half-jokingly said that if Hong Yanwu and the others didn't earn enough money to eat in the future, they were welcome to come to him for dinner at any time.

In this regard, Hong Yanwu smiled and did not say anything, but patted the shoulder of "Little Leizi" affectionately.

Indeed, if he now told anyone that he could make money by reselling movie tickets, he would definitely be ridiculed, saying that he had a brain disease, or to put it mildly, this guy bragging.

This is the gap between vision and insight, a lifetime apart.

In this era, one can almost say that there is no common sense in the field of business and economics at all. No one yet understands the truth that small profits are quick turnover, and small profits accumulate a lot.

I am afraid that everyone will understand this point until Yin Shengxi establishes a huge business group by selling a few cents of "big bowl of tea" at the front door

In these days, no one understands any speculative theories. I don't understand that extraordinary profits can only be generated when demand and supply are not equal.

Only in the future, when the dual-track price system is implemented and "officials are downcast" prevail, will the broad masses of the people be soberly aware of this.

In fact, in Hong Yanwu's view, this business is comparable to the reselling of sea cucumbers in Bincheng, and it is definitely a gold mine with unlimited potential to be tapped!

Why?

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, and more demand and less supply are of course the best situation, and the opposite is the worst situation.

To put it bluntly, that is, scarcity is expensive, a simplest speculative theory!

So does the movie ticket fit into this situation?

Of course! And it couldn't be more likely!

In fact, if we look at the market size, taking 1977 as an example, according to statistics, the permanent population of the capital at that time was 8.71 million. But the number of moviegoers reached more than 263.83 million that year.

Calculated, this is equivalent to an average of 33 movies a year for everyone in Beijing, which shows how huge and prosperous this market is!

From the demand side, people's spiritual and cultural life was also extremely scarce.

In the old era, watching movies was the main form of spiritual entertainment in people's lives, in addition to reading and listening to the radio. Not only do students love to watch movies, housewives love to watch movies, and employees of various units love to watch movies. Young people fall in love and love in the cinema.

It's hard for people today to understand the love and enthusiasm for movies back then. If you have relatives and friends who lived through that era, just ask them how they felt about watching movies back then, and most of them will get such answers.

"If you know that there is a movie to watch, then you will feel like a good day to get up", or "When you go to the movie theater as a child, you follow up like heaven".

It sounds like an exaggeration, but it's true. If you don't believe it, it can be confirmed from the details of people's lives in that era.

At that time, people were simply familiar with the movie lines by heart. Everyone is hungry to absorb the characters and words in the movie, and whoever doesn't understand it can'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 again" ("The Shining Red Star"), are still spoken by many people.

Others such as, "Go down, go down to him for seven days and forty-nine days, and I will be happy." ("War Flood Map"), "The heavenly spirit opens, the earth spirit opens, and the demons and monsters leave quickly." ("Forest Fire"), "Those who rush up, enjoy three taels of smoke!" ("Breaking through the Wujiang River"), for the sake of the party-state, stretch out your hand and pull your brothers!" ("Southern Expedition and Northern War") ...... These have also become common and even necessary languages in people's lives. When used in a specific context, no one does not understand.

Even people's nicknames are all taken from the characters in the movie. Matsui, Old Fox, Six Hundred Labor, Translator, Zhou Papi, Ma Xiaofei, Xie Lao Zhuan, Bai Taohua, Gu Dispatch, Bukharin......

In addition to this, there are even more exaggerated situations.

For example, sometimes, the unit or school will organize a group to watch a movie, and it is often the case that someone is always ahead of the plot of the movie. Such a person will say the lines one after the other. Before the character speaks, he speaks first, the character says the last sentence, and he takes the next sentence.

You know, TV sets were far from entering people's lives back then. To be able to do this, I don't know how many times I have to watch the movie, which is definitely beyond the scope of normal people's understanding.

What's more, there are many people who pay an unbearable price for watching movies.

For example, some people are hung by glass over the wall to watch a movie, resulting in leg and foot falls, disembowelment or **removal. There are also people who choose to drill heater pipes, but they are suffocated to death before they come out. There are also cases of violent impulses due to scrambling to buy movie tickets, and accidentally killing or injuring people.

It can be seen how crazy people's obsession with movies has become.

So, let's look at the supply side. On the contrary, it is difficult for the number of theaters or the number of films in the capital 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 is the number small, but the equipment is also poor. Except for a few theaters such as "National", "Dahua", "Majestic and True Light", which were known as first-class at that time, most of the rest were converted from tea gardens, restaurants, theaters, amusement clubs or chapels. Most of them are small, shabby, and dilapidated.

Later, because the people's government attached great importance to cultural undertakings, it tried every means to build, renovate, and expand the screening venues. So it's time for the "movement". There are already 69 public theaters in Beijing, and the number of seats has reached 56,504.

It's a pity that there are not many "professional theaters" that can screen movies all year round. Most of them are "theaters" that show not only movies, but also theaters and theatrical programs. For example, open workers' cultural palaces, clubs, quyi theaters, or auditoriums of institutions and enterprises open to the outside world.

Even if these "concurrent theaters" show films, they are not open to the public, and usually use an organized ticketing method.

What is even more regrettable is that the arrival of the "movement" has affected the cultural cause. Throughout the decade, the number of public cinemas has decreased rather than increased.

Imagine what kind of situation was it like to use these more than 50,000 seats to create more than 200 million moviegoers at the end of the "movement"?

In the same way, during the "Movement", countless films were regarded as black goods for sealing, funding, and repairing, and became a "big poisonous weed" that was banned from screening.

In the past eight years, only 20 new feature films have been released in theaters in Beijing. The main films released are "model play" films, "Three World Wars" films ("Tunnel Warfare", "Mine Warfare", "Southern Expedition and Northern War"), political documentaries and "critical films".

It wasn't until 1974, on the eve of the New Year's holiday, that new domestic films were gradually released. But there are not many of them, and the political framework is too limited. Audiences generally agree that the new film is far less good than the old one. Therefore, the theater is becoming more and more light, and domestic films have almost become "box office poison".

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

Like the Soviet films "Lenin in October", "Lenin in 1918". Albanian films "Coastal Thunder", "Underground Guerrillas". North Korean films "The Flower Girl", "When I Pick Apples", "The Fate of Kim and Eun Hee", "The Invisible Front". Vietnamese films "Forest Fire" and "The Road Home". Romanian films "Waves of the Danube", "Boiling Life", "Explosion" and many more.

The foreign films that appeared on the screen at the end of these "movements" finally made the boring movie theaters lively again. People rush to the cinema and often have to wait half a day or get up in the middle of the night to queue up to get tickets to these popular movies.

Even when "The Flower Girl" was played, the ticket hall of the Capital Cinema was in chaos, and there was a robbery incident, not only the door glass was broken several pieces, but gloves, shoes, hats, and even watches were scattered all over the ground.

So at that time, such a slip of the tongue was popular in society.

"Albanian movies are inexplicable, Romanian movies are hugging, North Korean movies are crying and laughing, Vietnamese movies are airplane cannons, but our movies are all news briefings......"

As for the present, we are in a period of alternation between the two eras, and it is precisely because for many years that there have been no good books, good plays, and good movies at all, so the people's desire for cultural and spiritual entertainment has reached an unprecedented level of hunger and thirst.

As a result, when the cultural policy opened a crack in the door, and some Chinese and foreign films before the "movement" were thawed and re-screened, it irrepressibly rekindled people's enthusiasm for films, and once again produced the phenomenon that it was difficult to find a ticket.

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

But he knows one thing! From the late 70s to the early 80s, it was the most rare golden age in China's film market.

The strongest proof of this is that he still remembers that in 1981, when the circulation of Popular Cinema rose from 500,000 copies in 1979 to 9.6 million copies, even foreign journalists would be stunned to hear this number and say, "No. 1 in the world!"

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

Not to mention the scene of the end of the movie theater, he still remembers how proud Fang Ting was when "Big Preserved Fruit" got two internal movie tickets, and how envious others were.

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

As a result, the two of them didn't eat, and they bought three games with the money for the meal, and they watched it three times in a row before going home, and it was quite beautiful when they were hungry. Even afterwards, they publicized this day's experience as a smart thing, and they actually won the recognition and applause of many peers.

So, is there any need to be skeptical in a market like this?

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

In the same way, there is also a blank in the management of the legal system. The police and workers' militia do not see this at all, and the management of the cinema is only to maintain order and focus on fare evasion and counterfeiting.

Take 10,000 steps back and say, even if you are really caught, the consequences are much lighter.

This is not stealing or robbing, a few cents of tickets, and not like food stamps and other tickets can affect the national economy and people's livelihood. At best, it is the sin of writing and checking and criticizing education.

So what is there to hesitate about? Naturally, it is worth letting go and doing a lot of work!

(End of chapter)