A full house attended the Event Cinema Association’s (ECA) annual slate day at Empire Walthamstow in, London, now comfortably back in its January calendar position. Organised by ECA director, Grainne Clarke, one of the most notable things at this year’s event was the anticipated return to content pipeline normality for the event cinema sector. Much like mainstream content that has shifted repeatedly over the last couple of years, the event cinema sector has had a similarly challenging time, with the pandemic obliterating any release schedule consistency. And due to this, as well as significant landmarks like the ECA making it to the grand old age of 10, there was a palpable sense of positivity present throughout the day.

Comscore began the proceedings on 26 January with an overview of looking back at the past 10 years of event cinema and where we are now, broken down by territory, with some interesting highlights; to name a couple, the interest in and success of genres such as K-pop and faith-based content. And, of course, the out-and-out success of theatrical screenings, with NT Live’s “Prima Facie” – the one no one’s quite sure how to pronounce – breaking the impressive record set by the same distributor’s “Fleabag” in 2019.