A POST-Covid footfall slump has punched a £200,000 hole in the revenues of Greenock’s much-loved local cinema – with the picture house’s owner calling on residents to rally around the valued community asset.

David Shaw, who owns West Coast Cinemas, which operates the Waterfront Cinema, says his business is facing an uncertain future unless more people make use of their facilities.

The town’s film theatre was enjoying a period of strong performance prior to the pandemic, which saw it bring in 91,000 customers in 2018/19.

But this figure has fallen by almost 30 per cent in the post-pandemic period, with just 65,000 customers recorded in 2023.

Greenock Telegraph: Waterfront Cinema calls on locals to 'use it or lose it'.

Now the cinema owner has issued a ‘use it or lose it’ message to their customers in a bid to bring back the regular visitors who have fallen out of the habit over the last few years.

David told the Tele: “I’m well aware we’re not unique in terms of cinemas throughout Scotland.

“Through our numbers it’s obvious that the effects of Covid are still there, in 2018/19 we had 91,000 customers through the door annually, in 2022 that was 63,000 and in 2023 that was 65,000.

“That’s nearly a 30 per cent drop in numbers and the gap in terms of the revenues is about £200,000.

Greenock Telegraph: Waterfront Cinema

“That is due to a lot of factors, the films and the fact that the Americans had actors and writers strikes which means the quality of the ‘slate’ is not as good as it could have been in previous years.

“We’re being told that future years will be better, but obviously the proof is in the pudding.

“I’m looking at it as a case of the people who used to come twice a month are only coming once a month and that has a knock-on effect for everything we do.

“From our point of view, we’re not saying we’re going to close our doors, but what we’re saying is if we don’t get good support from the local community then that could be an inevitability.”

The cinema and its staff regularly run events which aim to help locals engage more with film, the arts and others in their local community.

These include their fun film club for kids, their screenings of National Theatre and ballet productions and their popular ‘silver screen’ sessions, which are aimed at an older audience.

Greenock Telegraph: Waterfront Cinema calls on locals to 'use it or lose it'.

David said: “I believe we’re a community asset.

“We’ve got a young team here, we’ve got 15 local staff employed as part of this organisation and it’s a matter of making sure we look after them.

“Our energy costs are going through the roof and we can’t just turn around and pass that onto our customers.

“At the end of the day we need good films, and we need people to come in and watch those films, that’s why we’re looking for some support.

“We’ve had some unrealistic comments that compare us to luxury cinemas and expect the same thing here.

“That’s a double-edged sword, if they came and sat in our seats we’d be able to improve our seats, but if they won’t come we can’t improve.

“The frustration I’ve got is 2017, 2018 and 2019 were some of our busiest years and if it wasn’t for Covid that would likely have kept going.

“We got grants during Covid and without those to be honest we wouldn’t still be here, but after Covid when those grants stopped we were still dealing with the impact.

“Our costs have increased and we can’t do anything about that.

“We’re not going anywhere right now, but if we’re ignored we will be.”

David, who has run the cinema since 2011, says he has been ‘encouraged’ by some recent pushback against the online streaming of films and was pleased to see movies which were shown on the silver screen picking up most of the big awards this year.

Kiera McSorley, who is operations manager at the cinema, highlighted the impact that losing the picture house could have on local people.

She said: “If the cinema wasn’t here people would realise how important it is.

“When we’re talking about the deprivation around here, you’d see the impact here in terms of school holidays and the groups of kids that come down here on their own.

“Parents will either have to give their kids money to go up to Glasgow or take them up there during school holidays, it’s not just going to be a local day out anymore.

“For me that was a huge social activity when I was growing up here, you were too young to travel to Glasgow, so it was a huge day out.

“As a kid it was one of my first days out myself. If something were to happen to this place you’d lose out on those building blocks.

“Cinemas like this become community hubs and people don’t always notice these things until after they’re gone.”