Leisure Studies

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A good night out? Multiplex cinemas as sites of

embodied leisure

Phil Hubbard

To cite this article: Phil Hubbard (2003) A good night out? Multiplex cinemas as sites of embodied
leisure, Leisure Studies, 22:3, 255-272, DOI: 10.1080/026143603200075461

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Leisure Studies 22 (July 2003) 255–272

A good night out? Multiplex cinemas as

sites of embodied leisure
PHIL HUBBARD
Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU,
UK. E-mail: P.J.Hubbard@lboro.ac.uk

In this paper, the reasons for the current popularity of multiplex cinemas as sites of night-
time leisure and recreation in the UK is explored. By definition, such cinemas offer a
choice of films and viewing times, are usually located in a peripheral urban location and
provide free and plentiful parking. Drawing on interviews conducted in Leicester (UK), it
is argued that multiplexes are popular with particular audiences because they provide a
form of ‘going out’ that facilitates the maintenance of bodily comfort and ontological
security. The paper accordingly concludes that we can only understand the appeal of
multiplex cinemas by considering the embodied geographies of cinema going – a leisure
practice that involves the consumption of place as well as the visual consumption of
film.

Introduction
Given that retailing is currently experiencing sluggish growth, and that the
manufacturing industry continues to struggle, it is not surprising that many
commentators are identifying the leisure industries as the primary engine of urban
economic growth in the UK. Evidence to support this assertion is widespread: for
example, spending on leisure goods and services increased by one-third between
1995 and 2000 (reaching an estimated £154 billion per annum), making leisure
the single biggest financial outgoing for most families (HMSO, 2001). Despite
tendencies to flexibilization in working hours, the majority of this leisure spend
occurs at night, away from the routines of the 9 to 5. One-third of this
expenditure is on in-home entertainment, with the increasing availability of
satellite television, home computers, videos and DVD technology providing new
opportunities for domestic leisure. Consequently, much research has explored the
‘moral economies’ of household consumption, with major foci including
television viewing (e.g., Morley, 1994), Internet surfing (Miller and Slater, 2000)
and video-gaming (Silverstone and Hirsh, 1992). In contrast, comparatively little
has been written about ‘going out’ at night, despite the fact that many local
authorities have undertaken policies designed to boost their claim to be ‘24-hour
cities’ (Lovatt, 1997). This re-branding has typically involved the promotion of
the city centre as an evening leisure venue, with the primary goal being to attract
consumers into city-centre pubs and clubs, especially at weekends (Hollands,
1995). Despite an absence of reliable data on the impacts of these strategies, some
Leisure Studies ISSN 0261-4367 print/ISSN 1466-4496 online © 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
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DOI: 10.1080/026143603200075461
256 P. Hubbard
commentators have suggested that we are seeing the emergence of a dual or two-
speed city where the city centre at night is dominated by affluent and mobile
consumers, marginalizing the carless, teenagers and the elderly (Thomas and
Bromley, 2000; Chatterton and Hollands, 2002). For some, this raises questions
about the sustainability of the ‘24-hour city’ concept as a central plank of
contemporary leisure policy; for others, it poses more serious questions about
social order, with Hobbs et al. (2000, p. 706) suggesting that the city at night
offers no sanctuary from the class, gender and racial inequalities that ‘infest the
daylight hours’.
While this ‘dual city’ thesis begins to indicate something of the geographies of
nightlife, the assertion that we are witnessing a polarization of urban nightlife
arguably fails to acknowledge the diversity of ways people engage with the city at
night. Indeed, the notion that there is a stark choice between in-home leisure and
city centre venues devoted to a ‘pub and club’ mentality glosses over the sheer
range of sites that have transformed the evening leisure landscape of Western
cities over the last two decades. One such site is the multiplex cinema. By
definition, multiplexes are purpose-built cinemas offering a wide choice of
viewing across at least five screens (and typically 10 to 15). Most feature
Surround-Sound systems (360° digital sound), wide screens, a range of food and
confectionery, spacious seating, air conditioning, and free/easy parking. Many
also incorporate themed restaurants, cafes, shops and amusement arcades (and
are therefore indicative of the quasification that is fast-blurring the distinctions
between different forms of urban leisure – see Beardsworth and Bryman, 2000).
While the first multiplex in the UK (The Point at Milton Keynes) was opened in
1985, it was not until the 1990s that the major cinema circuits began to channel
the majority of their investment into multiplexes, with the result that by May
2002 there were an estimated 226 multiplex cinemas in the UK, accounting for
nearly two-thirds of all cinema screens and three-quarters of all cinema
admissions in just one-third of all cinema sites (Mintel, 2002). Significantly, the
vast majority are located out-of-town, taking their place alongside the plethora of
retail parks, malls, science parks and heritage centres that typically cluster on the
edge of major urban centres. In general then, town centre cinemas have suffered
from the arrival of the multiplex, with the number of sites in this sector falling
steadily from 629 in 1997 to less than 553 in 2002 (Mintel, 2002).
Given cinema attendances currently stand at a 30-year high, the significance of
the multiplex as a site of urban leisure demands to be examined, yet to date little
has been written about this by those working in film or media studies (but see
Harbord, 2002; Ravenscroft et al., 2001). As such, this paper reports on research
that sought to explore the popularity of the multiplex among different consumer
groups in Leicester (UK). In one sense, the project was about why certain
audiences visited multiplexes, but methodologically, this translated into an
examination of how people were using them – i.e., an examination of the
embodied experiences and practices of going to the cinema. This approach was
informed by the idea that particular leisure settings are popular with those that
use them because they are associated with a pleasurable series of bodily sensations
(which, in the case of the multiplex, include the visual pleasures of watching the
film itself, but extend to take in a variety of other felt and sensed experiences). In
 Multiplex cinemas 257
the remainder of this paper data from the Leicester case study is drawn on to
describe the bodily attraction of multiplexes for those who frequent them. To
begin with, however, it is necessary to explain why a focus on embodiment is
necessary if one wants to understand the attraction of the multiplex as a leisure
setting.

Leisure as embodied practice

In many ways, it seems self-evident that any understanding of leisure must take
into account the limits, capacities and meanings of the body. For example, it is
obvious that an individual’s ability to participate in different sporting activities
may be constrained or enabled by their corporeality, with lack of stature, bulk,
dexterity, muscularity, or flexibility potentially limiting participation (and
success) in different sports and physical activities. At the same time, it is apparent
that the inscription of certain types of body with gendered, classed, aged and
sexed meanings similarly encourages or discourages participation in specific
forms of leisure (so that, for instance, some bodies may be regarded as ‘out of
place’ in certain sporting spaces, irrespective of physical competence). And yet it
is only in the last decade or so that leisure research has explicitly considered the
social meanings of the body alongside bio-medical understandings of corporeality,
acknowledging that the social and biological entwine to shape leisure practice.
Edensor’s (2000) analysis of rural rambling is exemplary in this regard, suggesting
that walking in the countryside involves a reflexive (urban) body overcoming a
range of physical, symbolic and imaginary obstacles: here, the rural is
encountered physically as well as mentally, and is not just an object for visual
contemplation. As in the work of Crouch (2000), Eichberg (1998) and Urry
(2001), the suggestion here is that the leisured body is a contested site, subject to
social controls but simultaneously expressive and resistive.
Rejecting the traditional conception of a centred cognitive being, such
corporeal understandings interpret leisure settings as more than contextual: they
are instead regarded as material spaces that the body works and negotiates. This
embodied perspective stresses that individuals are only able to express themselves
in leisure spaces through their body – corporeal physicality representing the basis
of ‘being in the world’:
We use our bodies for grounding personal identity in ourselves and recognising it in
others. We use other bodies as points of reference in relating to other material things.
We use our bodies for the assignment of all sorts of roles, tasks, duties and strategies.
We use our bodies for practical action. (Harré, 1994, p. 257)
Accordingly, it is argued that we need to theorise leisure settings as spaces that
individuals engage with through both mind and body. However, Amin and
Thrift (2002, p. 85) note an important caveat here, arguing that while the body
remains the chief source of agency in the world, few bodily actions actually
require motive (i.e., attribution of intention, justification or pre-mediation). For
them, it is important to realize that our material surroundings provoke bodily
actions that, 95% of the time at least, occur in the ‘cognitive unconscious’.
Simplifying to the extreme, this implies many leisure practices are intuitive – for
258 P. Hubbard
example, we might cycle through the countryside without remembering how we
got from A to B, or play sports without thinking about what we are doing (or
why). Action in leisure spaces is therefore rarely conscious, and is often
improvised. Extending this, we can detail a wide repertoire of intuitive bodily
practices that enable people to participate in leisure: walking, pulling, dancing,
pushing, gesturing, clapping, jumping, climbing, sitting and so on. Amin and
Thrift (2002) go so far as to suggest this improvisational action includes talk:
not just as representational praxis, but as a way of making sense of the world
(through the process of making suppositions about our circumstances – see
Laurier, 2001).
Many of these ideas about the embodied experience of the world are not new,
and were presaged in the work of authors as varied as Mauss, Benjamin,
Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and Bourdieu (for an overview, see
Hubbard et al., 2002). Yet despite this renewed interest in the phenomenology of
the body, most leisure research remains predicated on the use of research methods
that cannot adequately capture embodied experiences of space. The exceptions
are informed by emerging debates in geography over the need to engage with lay
knowledges (Crouch, 2001) as well as the turn to non-representational theories
that emphasise doing over discourse:
The emphasis is on practices that cannot adequately be spoken of, that words cannot
capture, that texts cannot convey – on forms of experience and movement that are not
only or never cognitive. Instead of theoretically representing the world, ‘non-
representational theory’ is concerned with the ways in which subjects know the world
without knowing it, the ‘inarticulate understanding’ or ‘practical intelligibility’ of an
‘unformulated practical grasp of the world’. (Crewe, 2000, p. 655)

The privileging of ‘ordinary’ people’s knowledge is crucial here, with the politics
of non-representational theory stressing the importance of ‘appreciating, and
valorising, the skills and knowledges’ of embodied beings that ‘have been so
consistently devalorised by contemplative forms of life, thus underlining that their
stake in the world is just as great as the stake of those who are paid to comment
upon it’ (Thrift, 1997, p. 126). Or, as Laurier (2001) has put it, it is about valuing
people’s everyday competencies rather than the world-views of theory-driven,
professional researchers.
This shift from theory to practice is decisive as it demands that researchers
consider leisure practices as embodied and felt, not just imagined and represented.
This necessitates an exploration of the sensuous and poetic dimensions of
embodiment – an endeavour that may require the development of new research
methods given the limits of standardised research techniques (particularly
questionnaires) for elucidating pleasures and pains that may escape rational
explanation. Yet at the same time, it requires a consideration of the way that
practices are negotiated in relation to representations, given that discourses imbue
leisure practices with meanings that are both spoken and felt. Indeed, Crouch
(2001, p. 65) insists we cannot treat the materiality of leisure as somehow
separate from its representation, as they are ‘inter-penetrated in the process of
doing leisure’. Malbon’s (1999) ethnography of nightlife underlines this point,
showing that clubbing is scripted through the discourses of music promoters, DJs
 Multiplex cinemas 259
and a global dance industry as well as performed through rituals of dance that
create an intense and emotionally-charged leisure experience. Here, he alerts to
the bodily practices and proficiencies (dancing, adornment, poise etc.) that
bequeath clubs their particular character, and remarks on the sensual geographies
that are created as clubbers explore the possibilities of their own (and others’)
bodies, underlining the fact that leisure is simultaneously bodily and social, about
individual as well as collective experiences.
In the light of such arguments, it is suggested that we cannot hope to grasp the
appeal of multiplexes solely by exploring the social meanings that attach to them
(e.g., the idea they are ‘family entertainment centres’ for young and old alike).
Additionally, we need to explore how these settings are embodied through
practice – after all, places may be scripted, but our performances do not always
follow the script. Seeking to offer a corrective to those accounts of cinemagoing
that are preoccupied with visuality and the gaze (e.g., Mayne, 1993), this research
project thus began from the standpoint that cinema going is about the
consumption of place (e.g., the cinema) as much as it is about the consumption of
film (see Hubbard, 2002). This means that the ability of specific cinemas (e.g.,
multiplexes, art-house or single-screen city centre cinemas) to appeal to particular
audiences needs to be understood not only in terms of the films they show, but also
the (often improvised and unconscious) forms of practice played out within the
spaces of the auditorium, foyer and so on. Moreover, it suggests that any
understanding of cinemagoing must consider the embodied experiences of
travelling to the cinema, the use of attendant facilities and the spaces around the
cinema, all of which are part of the cinemagoing experience. This implies the need
for a carefully grounded analysis of cinemagoing (after all, leisure practices only
matter in relation to the places in which they are embedded). To these ends, an in-
depth study was performed in Leicester (UK), a city of 340,000 inhabitants
boasting six cinemas: a city arts cinema (The Phoenix), three cinemas specializing
in Asian-language film (one of these a part-time facility), a city centre Odeon
multiplex and an ‘out-of-town’ Warner Village multiplex. While no claims are
made for Leicester’s representativeness (it is a city characterized by high ethnic
diversity, a large student population and pockets of poverty), it is suggested that
many of the practices of cinema-going reported in this paper may be repeated,
albeit in different ways, in multiplex cinemas the length and breadth of the UK.

The ‘bodily attraction’ of the multiplex

Extensive data on cinemagoing in Leicester was obtained through a questionnaire
survey distributed in six neighbourhoods deemed to be broadly representative of
the city’s population. These areas were also selected as they were located at
different distances from the city centre; something that has been hypothesised as
important in determining the relative appeal of in-town and out-of-town cinemas
(Mintel, 1999). Four hundred and fifty-nine questionnaires (out of 1200) were
returned, providing a valuable insight into variations in cinemagoing for people
from different areas and social groups. From these returns, five representative
households from each neighbourhood were selected to participate in semi-
structured interviews of between 40 minutes and 2 hours duration. Although
260 P. Hubbard
respondents were keen to talk about their emotional response to particular films,
these interviews focused on embodied experiences of cinemagoing by asking
interviewees to describe their last trip to the cinema (i.e., to detail how they
reached the cinema, their behaviour before and after the film, their experience in
the auditorium etc.). Given the aims of this paper, and the fact that the results of
the extensive survey have been discussed elsewhere (Hubbard, 2002), the
remainder of this paper draws exclusively on these interviews to elucidate the
embodied experiences associated with watching films at multiplex cinemas. While
Leicester has two of these (the Odeon and the Warner Village cinema), the rest of
this paper focuses on the 12-screen Warner Village cinema, located some four
miles to the south west of Leicester city centre on the Meridian leisure park
(opened 1997), which incorporates four restaurants, a fitness centre and a
bowling centre. According to the survey results, this cinema attracts twice the
admissions per screen than any city centre cinema, thus replicating national trends
whereby out-of-town multiplex cinemas can be expected to generate up to 360
admissions per seat each year, or about one a day, while cinemas of one, two or
three screens average half that number or fewer (King Sturge, 2000). Moreover,
the fact the Warner Village is an out-of-town multiplex (while the Odeon
multiplex is a city centre cinema) means it is more typical of the type of multiplex
that has been developed in the last decade. Hence, in the remainder of this paper,
a number of themes concerning the use of the Warner Village cinema will be
identified in an attempt to highlight some of the reasons that multiplex cinemas
are increasingly popular venues for night-time leisure (being regarded by many
consumers as preferable to alternative, city centre venues). Throughout, extracts
from household interviews and vignettes of trips to the cinema are used to
illustrate these themes (the names of the respondents have been changed in all
cases).

Bodyspace: the importance of comfort and cleanliness

For all the criticism of multiplex cinemas as soulless and cold by those fighting for
the conservation of old-style ‘picture palaces’ (e.g., Gray, 1996), the dominant
motif respondents used to describe the ambience of the multiplex was that of
comfort. This notion of bodily comfort was evoked through descriptions of the
Warner Village cinema by those who frequented it as, variously, ‘clean, warm and
comfortable’ (Fiona, 2001), ‘modern and up-to-date’ (Mark, 2001), ‘spacious’
(Peter, 2001) and ‘comfy’ (Rosemary, 2001). Specific mention was made of the
cleanliness of the foyer and immediate areas, the relaxed décor of the auditoria,
and, above all else, the comfort offered by the seats. The latter was emphasized by
nearly all multiplex users, including many who made favourable comparisons
between the amount of leg room provided by the Warner Village cinema and that
offered elsewhere: ‘I didn’t realize how important good seats are until I went to a
cinema when I was on holiday last year . . . the film was 2.5 hours long, but it felt
much longer’ (Cybil, 2001). The fact that video and DVD technologies have
presented multiple opportunities for people to enjoy films in the comfort of their
own homes has clearly heightened the importance some place on comfortable
seating (as well as clean and modern décor). As one filmgoer explained:
 Multiplex cinemas 261
It’s not like the old days – and I’m talking about the 1950s, and even earlier – where
you had no choice . . . If you wanted to see a film, you had to go to the cinema that was
showing it, so you’d have to go to the Savoy for one film, or the Essoldo for another,
and some of them was real flea pits, rats and all! So, given the choice between an old
fashioned flea pit and waiting ‘til a film comes out on video, I’d soonest wait. I mean,
why would I take my lady friend out to a draughty old cinema when I could invite here
round for a video, cook a meal and that. But the Warners, well that’s different . . . it’s
a good night out. (Clive, 2001)
Multiplex users also made favourable comparisons with other cinemas in the
contemporary city, explaining that they used the Warner multiplex because they
associated other cinemas with a more negative range of bodily sensations. For
example, one respondent described the Odeon thus:
It’s got this huge foyer with stupid different queues for everything, it’s just totally
soulless. It’s got bright lights and it’s just really big and it’s got sticky floors because of
all the popcorn machines. It’s really gross. Every time I’ve been there there’s been
something sticky on the floor. I guess it’s not their fault, it’s the customer’s fault because
they spilt it. (Sarah, 2001)

Another respondent claimed that the arts cinema (The Phoenix) was ‘dark’ and
‘smoky’, (despite the fact that the venue has a non-smoking policy), while several
described Leicester’s Bollywood cinemas as ‘decrepit’ (Ferzana, 2001) and ‘rather
run-down’ (Rita, 2001), making no distinction between the city-centre Abbey
Road cinema and the suburban Capital and Piccadilly cinemas. However, it is
important to note that those who frequented these cinemas countered this,
suggesting that the Warner Village cinema was ‘noisy’ and ‘full of litter’ (Pam,
2001) and had ‘an overpowering smell of popcorn and hotdogs’ (Catherine,
2001).
None the less, the tendency for those who frequented the Warner Village
cinema to describe other cinemas using metaphors of dirt points to the importance
of some of the deep-held anxieties that consumers have about despoilment of the
body and self, with the decision to avoid particular cinemas in favour of others
tied into a complex range of feelings and fears about the boundaries of the body.
Sibley (1995) has scrutinized the nature of such desires and disgusts in his
exploration of geographies of exclusion, arguing that urges to prevent boundary
violation and the defilement of body and self inevitably feed on stereotypical
images of repulsion which become mapped onto particular social and cultural
phenomena. Hence, following Douglas’ (1966, p. 41) argument that ‘dirt is
matter out of place’, Sibley suggests that the avoidance of spaces regarded as dirty
is a logical outcome of the deep-seated urge to purify. In this sense, it appears that
multiplexes are popular with specific audiences because they allow them to
develop a clear sense of ontological security, knowing that they can enjoy an
evening out without the boundaries of their body being brought into question by
potential pollutants. To such consumers, the multiplex appears to offer a relaxing
setting where they are insulated from such pollutants and where the body is able
to feel comfortable in both a physiological and psychological sense. Of course, the
design of the multiplex is not incidental in this process, with the cultivation of an
atmosphere of Disney-esque family consumption relying on the incorporation of
262 P. Hubbard
a colourful and familiar set of cultural icons within a setting that is intended to
provide a comfortable and pleasant viewing environment.
Spaces of the body: maintaining social distance
While all respondents spoke of cinemagoing as a social activity, in the sense that
it brought them into contact with others, the interviews suggest that one of the
key social roles of multiplex cinemas appears to be offering a form of sociality
that is essentially ‘light’. This does not imply leisure in these spaces is passive, as
people perform their presence in these spaces through embodied practices that
involve an active engagement with their surroundings (e.g., parking their car,
choosing a parking space, queuing for a ticket, ordering food, watching a film,
playing a videogame and so on). However, it does suggest the form of social
interaction characteristic of multiplex cinemas is increasingly limited, in that
other people are engaged with only visually. Associated with this is a concomitant
maintenance of a ‘social distance’ between consumers, with few cinemagoers
seeking to speak with other film-goers or impinge on their ‘personal space’ (see
Holloway and Hubbard, 2001, p. 61). In many ways, this light sociality is
encouraged by the design of multiplex cinemas. To illustrate this we might
consider multiplex foyers: traditionally, cinemas provided large foyers where
people could mingle after films to discuss the film they had just seen (or were
about to see), or make plans to go on elsewhere (Gray, 1996). Today, however, the
foyer of multiplex cinemas is dedicated to the selling of concessions, and while it
may be themed around popular and readily-identifiable cultural symbols (see
above), it is not designed to encourage interaction between people. Moreover,
with the multi-screening of films, the foyer has taken on the characteristics of a
‘space of flow’ rather than a public place: a space carefully designed to ready the
audience for the visual pleasures of cinema (as well as reminding them of the
possibilities of allying this with the ‘guilty’ consumption of popcorn, soft drinks
and sweets), but not designed to facilitate rest or dwelling. Hence, the act of
queuing for tickets may be the only occasion when unknown bodies are brought
into proximity, a seeming source of anxiety for some:
I don’t like the Odeon very much . . . because, I don’t know if you’ve ever been into it,
there’s just like this sort of circle thing in the middle and nobody really knows where
they are or what queue they’re in, whereas at the Warners it’s a bit different because you
walk in and there’s like a flat sort of, a few booths, four booths or something and
there’s a definite queuing system to get into the booths, so that’s one thing that’s quite
good – knowing where you’re going, and how to pay and where to pay. (Fiona,
2001)

Anxieties about queuing were reiterated by other respondents, with Tracey

detailing her concerns that her children got bored waiting in line, and that their
complaints disturbed others in the queue. For such respondents, the foyer was not
regarded as a social meeting space, but as a space to pass through as quickly and
easily as possible: there was little that encouraged them to dwell.
The multiplex foyer may thus be described as a quintessentially sociofugal
setting (see Holloway and Hubbard, 2001, p. 58) in the sense that it discourages
the disruption of the imaginary ‘space bubble’ that surrounds us: a bubble that we
 Multiplex cinemas 263
only allow to be violated by those who are known to us. Moreover, this sociofugal
configuration of bodies and objects extends to spaces beyond the foyer. For
example, it is apparent that crowd participation, talking and other forms of social
interaction with strangers are strictly curtailed in multiplex cinema auditoria by
social convention (in contradistinction to some of the Bollywood cinemas in
Leicester, where respondents reported a more participatory mode of viewing
involving social interaction between members of the audience – see also Srinivas,
2002). For some respondents, the fact that the Warner Village cinema had
multiple small auditoria encouraged a more reserved and individualized mode of
spectatorship:
I went to see Billy Elliot at the Warners . . . It’s comfortable there, and I quite like the
fact that there’s often not that many people in the cinema, it’s a little bit more intimate.
They’re not the vast screens in those vast theatres that they used to be . . . a smaller
room leaves less chance of people interrupting things . . . You wouldn’t want to watch
Billy Elliot with people’s mobile phones going off in the poignant bits, after all. (Ian,
2001).
Another obvious symptom of this was the tendency for consumers to choose seats
away from others. Given most films in Britain are shown in auditoria where
occupancy rates are less than 30% at any given time (King Sturge, 2000), it is
usually not difficult to maintain a degree of personal space by sitting away from

Vignette One
Fiona, a midwife practitioner in her 20s lives with her partner, a policeman,
in Clarendon Park, a gentrified inner suburb a mile to the south of Leicester
city centre. Because they often have to work evening and night shifts at short
notice, they rarely go out with friends in the evening. However, at the start
of the week her partner returned from work earlier than expected – 6.30 –
and suggested going out the cinema. They check Teletext to see what’s on,
decide which film to watch, get ready to go out in just a few minutes, then
drive out to the cinema, which takes them ten minutes. When they arrive
they buy tickets for The Mummy Returns, which is largely his choice as she
forced him to go and see The Beach last time they went, and he hated that.
They then go over to Franky and Benny’s restaurant, which they have been
to before, and have a fairly rushed pizza as the film is due to start in 40
minutes. Fiona buys an ice cream before the film, even though she’s not really
hungry, because she thinks it’s an important part of the cinema-going
experience. Her partner thinks this is a waste of money, but as they’re both
able to get in half-price if he shows his warrant card, he doesn’t moan too
much. The cinema is three-quarters empty, so they are able to get a row to
themselves, not too close to the screen. After the film, which both thought
inferior to the original, they drive home, park outside their house and then
walk down to the pub on the corner for last orders, where they bump into
some friends from across the street.
264 P. Hubbard
others (whether this is a conscious choice or not), and few multiplex visitors
reported auditoria being overcrowded, save for a few Saturday night screenings,
when the cinema make take on a somewhat different ambience. As a consequence,
it is rare for visitors to cinemas to interact socially with others beyond the
individuals who they travelled to the cinema with – though some combine a trip
to the multiplex with a visit to a site where they know they will meet with friends
and familiar strangers – see Vignette One.
For such reasons, watching a film at a multiplex cannot be regarded as a form
of mass consumption in any real sense; even though the experience of being
physically close to people we are familiar with is clearly an important part of the
cinema experience for many, watching a film at the multiplex appears an
ultimately individualised form of consumption (cf. Bauman, 2000, on
shopping).

The body in space: the mobile consumer

This concern with maintaining the boundaries of the body and self was echoed in
multiplex users’ stress on the importance of automobility – which can be defined
as the normalisation of patterns of mobility associated with the motor car
(Beckmann, 2001). To date, research on leisure and tourism has somewhat
ignored the key significance of automobility, which creates distinct forms of
dwelling, travelling and socializing. Urry (2001) has recently highlighted this
omission, describing automobility as the dominant culture that organizes and
legitimates socialities across different genders, classes and ages. Following Urry, it
appears important to consider the way that automobility shapes involvement in
the night-time economy, necessitating thinking about the embodied experiences of
driving through the city:
We normally go to the Warner Village at the Meridian . . . I don’t know why we go
there rather than the Odeon, there’s no big difference in terms of price or anything, but
we just tend to go there. It feels like we’re going out a bit more I think. It’s a bit further
away. (Fiona, 2001)

Hence, to understand the popularity of out of town leisure, it appears we need to

interrogate the pleasures and dangers of driving, which necessitates a considera-
tion of the way that the symbolic meanings of the motor car create idealised
notions that we can exist as autonomous, individual body-selves, independent
from and cocooned from contact with troublesome Others. Freidberg (2002)
accordingly describes the automobile as a ‘viewing machine’ that facilitates a
motorized form of flânerie where the driver is sealed off from the public and the
street, yet is able to experience the heightened sense of urban mobility and fluidity
traditionally associated with the ‘streetwise’ male pedestrian.
For many, driving in the city at night thus becomes a pleasurable experience,
bequeathing a sense of freedom while dispensing with the need to deal with the
terrors of street-life. A lengthy drive to an out-of-town multiplex may then be seen
as preferable to a short walk into town (or, for that matter, even a short drive into
town). Many respondents accordingly explained their decision to drive to an out-
of-town cinema was based on the fact that it entailed an easy drive ‘out’ of the city
 Multiplex cinemas 265
to a one-stop leisure location, as opposed to a more stressful (but shorter) journey
into town:
I’ve never been to the Odeon . . . it’s closer to where I live than the Warner Village [but]
it doesn’t look attractive . . . I’m sure it’s got a big car park but I’ve never seen it. You
get the feeling that there’s nowhere to park round there whereas [the] Meridian is a nice
big open space, or you get that feeling, anyway. There’s lots of other things there as
well, there’s places you can eat if you want to. (Mark, 2001)
Several respondents who assumed primary responsibility for childcare underlined
the particular appeal of the Warner Village as an easily accessible leisure
location:
It’s further than the Odeon, but you never can be sure about the traffic when you go
into town, you have to time it right. The Warner Village is further but there’s always
plenty of parking and it’s a more predictable journey, you know? It’s like, you go into
Leicester to see a film or go to the Haymarket [theatre] you have to fight the traffic, find
a parking space and so on. Going to Meridian you can time it much better, which is
really important if you’ve got kids to look after. (Tracey, 2001).
Of course, we should note that this convenience is denied to those who cannot
afford cars, with those who stated they would normally walk when they go out in
the evening emphasizing the lengthy detours they had to make to avoid areas they
were fearful of. Likewise, many of those who used public transport explained that
they were anxious about taking certain bus routes at night, and would avoid

Vignette Two
Ferzana is a 26-year-old who works part-time at a data-inputting centre in
central Leicester while her husband works in a jewellers. She’s lived in the
Belgrave area, a relatively deprived area just to the north of Leicester city
centre for 7 years. As she has two young children, she says she is rarely able
to go out with her husband in the evening, as babysitters are too expensive.
However, on a Sunday once a month she meets up with one of her old friends
from College to go to see a film while her husband looks after the kids.
Ferzana always picks her friend up in her car, and then drives to the cinema,
a journey of about 15 minutes through fairly light traffic. They usually book
in advance even though it’s rarely busy on Sunday evening. This time its
Chocolat, based on a book that both of them have recently read. They arrive
shortly before the film is due to start, park immediately outside the cinema,
pick up their tickets and go straight in. They don’t buy any food or drinks,
as both have eaten before they went out. The film is finished by 9, but then
Ferzana will go back to her friend’s house where they have a drink and talk
about the film. Both agree it was a bit disappointing because it didn’t match
up to their expectations having read the book. They then start talking about
what they might see next, and Ferzana’s friend says that Captain Corelli’s
Mandolin should be out by then. As they’ve both read that as well, they
decide they should see that next.
266 P. Hubbard
journeys that involved visiting Leicester’s central bus station at night. In contrast,
few car-drivers reported any anxiety about driving through any particular areas of
the city at night, emphasising the enhanced mobility that is associated with car
ownership. For such reasons, it is perhaps unsurprising that 92% of the survey
respondents arrived at the Warner Village cinema by car, reinforcing the
assumption that peripheral cinemas and leisure parks are frequented by car-borne
‘parkaholics’ whose leisure routines are structured around sites that are easily
accessible by car (Vignette Two).
In this case, Ferzana benefits from being able to use (what she described as) ‘her
husband’s car’ at weekends, allowing her to go to a site that remained inaccessible
during the week. While such findings are indicative of the exclusion of non-car
owners from peripheral cinemas, it is perhaps dangerous to suggest that all car-
owners find driving in the city at night a pleasurable or liberating experience. For
example, given that media coverage of car-jacking or road rage often suggests that
women and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to attack, we might note the
precautions that some drivers feel obliged to take when in the city at night:
Probably quite stupidly, I feel quite safe within my car . . . but I often lock the doors
when I’m driving on my own at night, or when I drive home from [work] . . . it’s not
particularly nice round Leicester at night, I’d always lock my doors, but otherwise it
doesn’t bother me. (Fiona, 2001)
Other respondents reported anxiety about leaving their car in some parts of the
city at night, but rarely leisure parks. The latter were seen as ‘secure’ by
Ferzana:
Meridian Park is much safer for parking than in Leicester. There always seem to be
people around, security guards, you know, CCTV and that. Our car was broken into
once, outside the old Odeon, but the Meridian and the Showcase [Nottingham], places
like that, you never hear of any trouble. (Ferzana, 2001 – see also Vignette Two)
The view that out-of-town parking is inherently safer than city centre parking was
also noted by Thomas and Bromley (2000), who found that 89% of night-time
users of Swansea were uneasy about the safety of their cars. For some, fear of car
crime is as pressing a concern as their own personal safety, confirming the idea
that the car is often viewed as an extension of Self (Beckmann, 2001). The threat
that this personal space may be broken into is thus an important influence on
many car owners’ leisure routines. Consequently, the Warner Village multiplex
was most likely to be visited by those in the extensive survey claiming that safe
parking was significant in shaping their choice of venue, and although the Warner
Village cinema was not the closest cinema for any of the respondents, it
apparently attracted twice as many admissions per screen than any city centre
cinema.
Different bodies, different spaces?
It is here that fear emerges as a significant factor shaping rituals of evening leisure.
Indeed, household interviews suggested that the use of particular leisure sites can
only really be understood in relation to the wider myths of the city at night, a city
where fears of Otherness are intensified and embodied (Schlör, 1998). As many
 Multiplex cinemas 267
commentators have recently stressed, fear is unavoidably implicated in the
production of social difference, with the strategies of avoidance that people
practice in the ordinary settings of their everyday life creating boundaries between
Self and Other that, in turn, create geographies of inclusion/exclusion (see Hobbs
et al., 2000; Sparks et al., 2001). This implies that people’s desire to seek
ontological security and avoid threatening people and places is a key influence on
leisure practices.
It is here that we reach an important contradiction in contemporary practices
of night-time leisure: those who frequent multiplexes are engaged in a form of
‘going out’ that does away with the need to deal with difference. Indeed,
Hannigan’s (1998) ideas of ‘riskless risk’ seem particularly useful in explaining the
popularity of multiplexes with consumers. Drawing on the work of Maffesoli
(1992), he suggests a general tendency in post-modern society is for people to seek
forms of sociality that offer little risk. As in Bauman’s (1997) work, this concern
with minimizing risk is taken to be symptomatic of a society where consumption
involves a volatile and capricious search for identity rather than representing the
simple act of fulfilling physiological (‘stomach’) needs. Hence, Hannigan (1998,
p. 73) highlights the ever-increasing tendency for people to seek leisure that offers
escape from everyday routines while providing ‘recurrence of reassurance’. As
Glennie and Thrift (1992) argue, this affective ambience is provided by spaces of
consumption where people can interact ‘lightly’ without too much riding on the
outcome. Leisure may then be a means to self-actualization – a reconfirmation of
self through encounters with others – but the rising popularity of the multiplex
suggests that this occurs in settings where the boundaries of the body are not
brought into question (see also Sibley, 1995).
The corollary of this is that consumers tend to frequent places where they feel
‘in place’. All those interviewed who visited the Warner Village multiplex were
asked what type of people used it, with the most common responses being ‘people
like us’, ‘everyday people’ or ‘Leicester people’:
It just looks like a real average bunch of people – a bit of everything . . . Is it something
I’ve thought about? No, not really . . . You feel fairly comfortable mixing with the
crowd at the cinema. (Peter, 2001).
Similarly, as Tracey put it: ‘I’ve never really noticed who goes, they just look like
me: Normal people going in to watch a film’. Interestingly, she also claimed never
to have seen any non-white consumers at this site (contrary to the survey data).
Conversely, social difference was associated with sites that were infrequently
visited or avoided (cf. Jackson and Holbrook, 1995). Fiona, for example,
stressed:
I’ve been to the Odeon a few times but you get too many kids hanging around, being
noisy, skateboarding and that. And smoking too, in the foyer and once in the cinema
. . . they didn’t stop when I asked. I get asthma so it really bugged me. You just don’t
get that type of crowd at the Meridian . . . I guess it’s a personal space thing, but you
don’t want to sit next to a cocky little kid when you go out. (Fiona, 2001)
Likewise, Ferzana stated ‘If you go to the Odeon, there’s very big groups and very
laddish, rowdy’. But while some avoid city centre spaces that they felt were
268 P. Hubbard
frequented by younger people, the survey suggested that multiplexes also appeal
to a fairly youthful audience, namely those in the 16–34 age group. For such
consumers, out-of-town leisure parks offer a leisure setting that provides a
favourable contrast to the city centre for going out in the week:
You don’t have to dress up to go the cinema like you would if you go into town . . . it
is a night out but it’s not like a, you know, ‘big’ night out where you might go to few
bars, a club. You dress down, not up . . . And it’s not like you’re going to spend 40 or
50 pounds, like you might at the weekend . . . and you’re not going to have a big
hangover the next day. (Fiona, 2001)

For the consumers cited here, multiplex cinemas seemed to occupy a distinctive
niche in leisure routines, allowing them to socialize with family or friends on
week-day nights in an environment where they could be relaxed and ‘off guard’.
Unlike a ‘night out’ in Leicester city centre, which was likely to be spontaneous in
many respects, most visiting out-of-town facilities have a set idea of what they
were going to do, at what time.
Against this, those in the 16–34 age group that were co-habiting or had young
children were also avid visitors to multiplexes, but here ‘out of town’ leisure
supplanted rather than complemented use of the city centre (cf. Mintel, 1999).
Members of this group reported a preference for out-of-town as opposed to city
centre venues at night, particularly at the weekend, when many felt that Leicester
was given over to a ‘pub and club’ culture, was overly crowded and felt
dangerous. Interestingly, many of those who reported avoiding the city centre at
the weekend had often been frequent users of the city centre a few years earlier,
but claimed variously that they were ‘getting too old for that kind of thing’
(Ferzana, 2001) or simply that the city centre had become more threatening:
The clubs I use to go to are still there but they’ve changed names, and, you just felt safer
then than now, and it was better. The nightclubs were better, you had better times than
you do now, because you’ve got to watch yourself all the while when you’re out.
(Tracey, 2001)
For such consumers, a visit to an out-of-town leisure park might become their
‘big’ night out, an occasion reserved for the weekend and typically involving a
meal and a drink in an adjacent restaurant before a visit to the cinema, or perhaps
a take-away afterwards (see Vignette Three).
Here, it is particularly interesting that multiplexes are sold on the idea that they
offer ‘family’ entertainment. Certainly, the notion that these new spaces offer a
safe alternative for parents seeking to amuse their children is one that developers
seem keen to exploit through the provision of child-oriented facilities. Analysis of
survey returns did suggest that multiplexes are more likely to be frequented by
those who currently have children or may have children in the near future (i.e., are
16–34 and in a relationship) than by post-family or non-family households.
However, the survey also showed that families rarely go en masse to multiplexes
and it is more likely that one parent or guardian takes a child or group of children
to a multiplex during the day (a theme underlined in Vignette Three); whereas
after 6pm over 90% of trips to multiplexes involved a couple or group of adults.
As such, references to multiplexes as ‘family’ spaces seems to be a shorthand for
 Multiplex cinemas 269

Vignette Three

Tracey is a childminder in her 30s from Thurnby Lodge, an area of mixed

council and private housing located 4 miles to the east of Leicester city
centre. Tracey has children aged 4 and 9 years, and her husband is a butcher
working some 15 miles away. Because her parents live on the other side of
the estate, she can find a babysitter quite easily, and goes for a meal with her
husband at a pub in a nearby village once a week. But the last time she went
out was on a Saturday, when her husband finishes work at lunchtime and
they can go out with their children. They drive out to the cinema, together,
with Tracey taking the children to see the four o’clock screening of Spy Kids
while her husband drives off to the B&Q superstore half a mile down the
road. She says she always takes sweets and drinks for the children as they’re
too expensive at the cinema, but the children will pester otherwise. Ninety
minutes later, she meets up with her husband in the bar of the Megabowl,
where her husband has been watching the football results. They play two
games of bowling, and then go to McDonalds’, returning home by 9.15.

the kind of ambience that developers are trying to create; an emphasis on ‘family
values’ creating the right place image for attracting certain types of consumers,
even if, in practice, relatively few people watch a film as a ‘family’ (see Aitken,
1998, on family spaces). Consequently, it seems that multiplexes effectively link
the desires and fantasies of ‘family’ life to a specific (and sanitised) leisure space
which offers predictable and unthreatening distractions in an environment that is
similarly predictable – something particularly evident in the themed environment
of multiplex cinemas.

Conclusion
Given this paper has detailed a Leicester case study in an attempt to highlight a
range of broader issues, it is clearly difficult to generalize as to the reasons that
consumers in other towns and cities might visit multiplexes. None the less, this
paper has argued that the current popularity of the multiplex as a site of evening
leisure can only be understood by considering both their distinctive ambience as
well as the type and range of films they show. Focusing on the former, it has been
suggested that the characteristic features of multiplex cinemas (in terms of design,
layout, location, marketing and clientele) bequeath them an ambience that has
appeal for many consumers in Leicester. Hence, while many of those who frequent
‘arts’ and ‘Bollywood’ cinemas may regard multiplexes as cold, impersonal or
soulless (see Jankovich and Faire, 2003), this paper has suggested that multiplex
users typically regard them as comfortable spaces, where this notion describes
both the bodily sensation of being warm, cushioned and relaxed, as well as the
sense in which people feel secure and ‘in place’. Crucial here is the idea that they
allow people to develop a clear sense of ontological security, knowing they will be
able to enjoy an evening out without their sense of self being challenged or
270 P. Hubbard
undermined (Sibley, 1995). In this sense, it is possible to argue that the appeal of
multiplexes as leisure sites is both mental and physical, as they facilitate a range
of embodied pleasures (e.g., watching a film, eating food, driving a car) whilst
eliminating the need for body-subjects to deal with difference (even though
difference may be present). On this basis, it is possible to argue that multiplexes
are both represented and experienced as an essentially unthreatening, predictable
and domesticated leisure setting: as Harbord (2002) stresses, multiplex culture
arguably has more in common with forms of domestic consumption (such as
home computing or television viewing) than it does with traditional cultures of
public film exhibition.
More generally, such conclusions raise interesting questions about the changing
landscape of urban leisure. In some accounts, the notion of the ‘dual’ city (usually
used to refer to polarizations in terms of land use, labour and housing markets)
is seen to be extending to leisure and entertainment opportunities as corporate
leisure investment drives a wedge between those mainstream, higher spending,
consumption groups who frequent city centre venues and those consumers
(especially the young, elderly and less affluent) who may be marginalized from
such sites and hence reliant on in-home entertainment (see Chatterton and
Hollands, 2002). However, this paper suggests that talk of the dual or ‘two speed’
city simplifies a leisure landscape where there is not a stark choice between town
centres and in-home leisure, but where there are multiple sites catering to different
consumer tastes (and pockets). Multiplex cinemas provide one such site, and
when located on the periphery of the city – away from the traditional hub of
urban life – they are able to offer a comfortable leisure experience for those for
whom the city centre has become a space to avoid at night. This paper has
accordingly shown that the multiplex has appeal for a wide variety of groups, one
of the major contradictions here being that – for all the emphasis on a middle-
class Disney-esque ‘family values’ – the range of consumers at a multiplex in terms
of age, class and ethnicity may be even more varied than those found in the city
centre. Rather than positing the co-existence of one form of leisure on the
periphery of the city, and another in the city centre, this paper thus concludes by
suggesting that the contemporary city is a patchwork of different leisure spaces,
each of which is characterised by a distinctive set of embodied practices rather
than distinctive audiences.

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