UK cinema admissions in 2009: best year since 2002

The Cinema Advertising Association has just released the admissions tally for December, enabling us to arrive at a grand total for the year.

December saw ticket sales of 16,265,080, the highest number for the month since 2005.

This brings the annual total to 173,461,334, marking an increase of 5.6% over 2008 and making 2009 the best performing year since 2002 (see Figure 1).

The Pearl and Dean web site lists the top ten performing titles in December 2009, led by Avatar (which took nearly £27 million in the month), Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakuel (£10 million) and Sherlock Holmes (£9 million).

Figure 1: UK cinema admissions, 2002 to 2009

Source: Cinema Advertising Association/ Nielsen EDI