VIDEO: Cineworld Chichester celebrates its 20th birthday

The actual anniversary of its opening in 2003 is March 21, but the team have put the party back to the Saturday to maximise the party for everyone. Hans Sigurbjornsson, one of the cinema managers, explains: “We are going to get as many people as we can along and it will be coinciding with the beginning of John Wick 4. Every customer that comes will get a free small popcorn and we'll have some fun and games in the foyer. There will be some surprises and we will have some people dressing up as characters from films. One of the games is going to be bean bag throwing and if you hit the target you can upgrade your small popcorn to bigger or a substitute that is appropriate to you if you don't eat popcorn. Basically we're going to make sure that everyone gets a free treat.”

Cineworld started in 1995 and Chichester came along eight years later: “The whole focus has been on getting the best buildings, the cleanest buildings, the best experience and the best atmosphere. We've been so lucky here that we have got the IMAX screen as well. It is a big selling point for us. People come from a long way to see films there.” Hans considers himself a huge Cineworld fan: “I've got a huge passion for working in the industry which I love. I started at Cineworld part time when I was at university and I'm here full time six years later. I love the films and I love the colleagues. There's a real family feel all the way down from the management, and nothing beats being at work on Friday and seeing all the people coming in really excited about the films they're going to watch and seeing the children so excited about what they're going to see.”

As ever, cinema generally goes through times when people really write it off but somehow cinema just keeps on going and it has certainly survived the pandemic: “We know we've just got to keep ticking along and giving people the best experience that we can, and the great thing is that we've had some really brilliant films in the last few months. Avatar really proved that. We had such good numbers for Avatar. It was the biggest film of the last few months and there was a real feeling that it helped bring audiences back. And the IMAX special effects were great.”

Cineworld Chichester is special place full of memories for Sussex Newspapers group arts editor Phil Hewitt: “I remember all the excitement and all the anticipation as it all went through the planning processes for the whole site, just that feeling of ‘Is it ever going to happen?’ but then not long before it did actually open we had a fabulous tour of the building while it was still a shell, wandering from screen to screen long before there were any seats or anything inside the rooms, wearing a hard hat because it was still a construction site. Then when it opened we had another behind the scenes tour and it was incredibly exciting to go into the projection room where they explained to us how the film was actually projected onto the screen. It was a different world back then. These days everything is completely digital.”

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