Kinepolis turns coming-soon trailers into an interactive cinema event
Since 2019 Kinepolis has sold tickets to a trailer show. Audiences rate each forthcoming film on their phones, the ticket money goes to charity, and the circuit ends the evening with a declared preference attached to an identified customer.
Published 9/1/2026
The idea
Package the coming-soon slate as a ticketed communal event, collect a rating for each film from an identified customer, and give the audience a route from interest to booking.
Evidence
Audience results reported. The best-documented edition drew 2,300 attendees to 44 trailers over 90 minutes, with 99 percent saying they appreciated the trailers and more than 95 percent satisfied or very satisfied. No admissions, conversion or return-on-investment figures have been published.
Operator takeaway
The mechanic is not the trailer reel. It is the combination of a paid-for reason to attend, a declared preference per title and a named customer record you can act on later.
Try this
Run a 60 to 75 minute showcase of eight to twelve forthcoming titles, charge a nominal amount donated to a local cause, and ask each attendee to rate willingness to attend rather than simply whether they liked the trailer.
Measure
Attendance, ticket-to-charity yield, completed votes per attendee, opt-in rate, bookings by rated title within 60 days, and F&B spend on the night.
Watch out for
Treating audience ratings as market research. Attendees self-select, low prices and gifts shape who comes, and forty-plus trailers produce fatigue that degrades later responses.
What Kinepolis actually does
Kinepolis curates the films opening over the following months, obtains trailers and, in some cases, exclusive footage, actor introductions or behind-the-scenes material from distributors, then sells the result as an event. Customers reserve a seat — originally free, later commonly a nominal one or two euro contribution passed to a named charity. During the show, audiences vote on individual trailers using their smartphones, and the circuit collects both title-level rankings and an overall event survey.
This is an established mechanic, not a new idea
Discovery Day was tested at selected Belgian cinemas in spring 2019, drawing more than 2,000 attendees, and rolled out across Belgium, France, Spain, Luxembourg and the Netherlands that autumn. It was launched as a twice-yearly proposition, but it has not run consistently twice a year in every market. Later editions are market-specific and irregular; a 2024 Dutch promotion described it as back after an absence. Any operator borrowing the format should treat cadence as a decision to make, not a proven rhythm.
The reported results, stated precisely
The strongest published evidence remains the French edition of 5 October 2019: 2,300 attendees, 44 trailers, a 90-minute programme, 99 percent saying they appreciated the trailers and more than 95 percent satisfied or very satisfied. Kinepolis described the ratings as useful information about each film's potential. That is an audience result. It shows people enjoyed the event and were willing to score the slate. It does not show that the event sold tickets to those films.
How the four commercial jobs stack up
The format does four things at once, and they are worth separating before you copy it. It promotes an entire slate rather than one title. It produces a declared preference per film. It identifies a customer, because a seat has to be reserved. And it generates charity and local goodwill that gives the press something to cover. A cinema that only wants the third of those can achieve it far more cheaply; a cinema that wants all four has a reason to run the event.
The charity mechanic is doing real work
French editions have been advertised at a solidarity price of one euro per ticket donated to Les Restos du Coeur, and a Dutch edition at a two euro contribution to a national charity. A nominal charged price does three useful things at once: it suppresses no-shows, it removes the awkwardness of asking customers to pay to watch advertising, and it gives local media a story that is not a discount.
Where the evidence stops
Kinepolis has not published subsequent ticket conversion by title, whether high trailer scores predicted box-office performance, incremental admissions, concession income, customer acquisition or opt-in figures, the number of completed votes, repeat attendance at later editions, or cost and return. Nothing here should be read as evidence that the event increased attendance profitably.
What a smaller cinema should change
Forty-four trailers is a circuit's problem, not an independent's opportunity. A shorter show of eight to twelve titles or extracts allows a better question to be asked: not did you like this, but would you come, would you recommend it, and would you pay full price. Segment the answers by cinema and audience type, and follow each voter when the film opens. That converts trailer appreciation into demonstrated local demand, which is the version of this idea worth owning.
The closed loop nobody has published
The valuable analysis links each customer's votes to their subsequent bookings, which would separate stated interest from purchase, awareness from conversion, and broad crowd-pleasers from strong niche affinity. There is no public evidence that Kinepolis performs this analysis, although it holds the ingredients. If you run this event, build that link on day one — it is the difference between a pleasant evening and an audience-intent dataset.
Stay updated
Get new Cinemas in Action briefings by email.
Occasional operator briefings and new case studies — no marketing, no third parties.