Local Cinema Website: What Moviegoers Need and How to Get One

A cinema website has two jobs: the programme and the front door

The programme (which films, which screen, what time, how many seats are left) changes every week. It already lives in your ticketing system, whether that is Veezi, Spektrix or whatever your box office runs on. That is where times are updated and seats are sold. Copying showtimes by hand onto a second page is how a family ends up arriving at seven for a film that moved to quarter past eight.

The front door is everything that does not change weekly: where you are, what tickets cost, whether the screen is step-free, whether the bar opens before the film, what the place is like. That is what first-time visitors, Google Maps and AI assistants need, and it is what most small cinemas leave thin.

So the shape is simple: one prominent “What’s on and tickets” link at the top of every page, going straight to the ticketing system, and around it a page that answers every question someone has before deciding to come.

What moviegoers check before they book

Watch someone choose a cinema on their phone and the questions come in roughly this order:

• What’s on, and when? One tap to the programme, not a PDF of last month’s listings.
• How much? Adult, child, student and senior prices, any cheap day, what members pay, and whether prices differ by screen or seat.
• When does the film start? If listed times include ads and trailers, say roughly how long they run.
• Can we eat and drink? The popcorn, the bar, and whether drinks can go into the screen.
• How do we get there? Parking, the nearest bus or train stop, and how late it runs after the last film.
• What is it like? The seats, the screens, the building. Photos answer this faster than words.

None of these changes more than a few times a year, which is exactly why they belong on the website.

Accessibility: the section that decides whether some people come at all

For many moviegoers, access information is the deciding question. Give it its own section and be specific:

• Getting in: step-free entrance, lifts, which screens need no stairs, accessible toilets.
• Wheelchair spaces: which screens, how many, where in the room, and how to book one, since many systems cannot sell them online.
• Hearing: a hearing loop, and subtitled or captioned screenings. Explain the label you use (“subtitled”, “CC”, “SDH”), because venues differ.
• Audio description: whether headsets are available and how to ask.
• Relaxed screenings: lights partly up, sound down, freedom to move. Say when they run.
• Companion tickets: if you take part in a carer ticket scheme, name it.

Mark access screenings the same way every time in the programme, so the website explains the code once. On your Google Business Profile, set the matching attributes too; Google’s help on attributes puts them under Edit profile → More, and the options depend on your category.

Google already shows film times. What your listing and site add

Search a film title or “cinema near me” and Google often shows times and a tickets link right in the results. Those times are not typed into your Business Profile; they arrive through listings data. If yours are missing or wrong, ask your ticketing provider whether it sends your programme to Google and the main listings sites.

The Business Profile does the rest, and it is worth getting exactly right (labels can differ slightly):

• Category: “Movie theater” as the primary category.
• Hours: from first doors to the last film letting out, so “Open now” is honest on a late night. Use special hours for holidays, closed weeks and festival days.
• Website: your front-door page, which links on to tickets. Adding a website to your Google Business Profile takes a minute.
• Photos: the screens, the seats, the foyer, the bar, the front at night.
• Posts: a festival or a Q&A screening fits Google’s event posts, which take a title, dates and times.

Not on Maps yet? Start with putting your business on Google Maps and verifying it. Wondering whether a site changes where you appear? Does a website help Google Maps ranking covers what is known.

Membership, gift cards, private hire, schools and birthdays

For an independent or community cinema, the extras often keep the lights on, and people search for each one on its own: “private cinema hire”, “cinema birthday party”, “cinema gift card”. Give each a short paragraph:

• Membership: the cost, what members get, and where to join.
• Gift cards: where to buy them and whether they cover the bar.
• Private hire: capacity per screen, possible times, whether people can bring their own film, food and drink, and how much notice you need.
• Schools, groups and birthdays: morning screenings, group rates, what a party includes.
• Events and festivals: film clubs, seasons, director Q&As, linked to the programme rather than repeated.

End each with one clear way to ask, a phone number or an email address. A hire enquiry that needs three clicks to find a contact can easily go elsewhere.

Let the reviews describe the building

“A unique cinematic experience” tells nobody anything. Your reviews do better: the reclining seats, the fresh popcorn, the staff who know the films, the old building with its original ceiling, the bar where people stay to talk after the credits. That is the honest description of your cinema, written by people who chose it.

Reviews also carry practical answers, such as whether the car park is easy or the screen is warm in winter. Quote them, and answer the reviews themselves, including the cross ones; how to respond to Google reviews has examples.

Structured data: telling machines you are a cinema

Search engines and AI assistants read a layer of labelled facts called structured data. For a cinema the right type is MovieTheater, a kind of LocalBusiness, with your address, coordinates, hours, phone and rating. Individual showings have their own type, ScreeningEvent, with properties for the film, format and subtitle language; that belongs on the programme pages your ticketing system publishes.

Your front-door page should describe the cinema itself in plain text, because that is what an assistant quotes when someone asks where to see a film tonight. How local businesses get recommended by AI assistants explains the rest.

Building the front door from your Google listing

If your cinema has a Google Maps listing, most of the front door already exists: hours, address, photos and reviews describing what it is like to watch a film there. blasa turns that listing into a website. You paste the Maps link and a few minutes later the site is live at an address like yourcinema.blasa.shop, with nothing to write. It includes:

• Hours in local time with a live “Open now” badge, a Call button, Get directions and an embedded map.
• “What customers love”: real review quotes about the seats, the popcorn, the staff or the building, and an FAQ answered from reviews.
• A photo gallery from the listing, and a booking button when your listing carries a booking or tickets link.
• MovieTheater structured data and an llms.txt file for AI assistants, plus a second language automatically if most reviews are in another one.

The programme stays on your ticketing system, linked from the site when your Google listing carries that link. It is not an online store (no seat maps or card payments), there is no drag-and-drop editor, and it needs a Google Maps listing. It is free to publish, with one small labelled ad and a “Made with blasa” badge that paid plans remove.

There are no cinema sites on blasa yet, so browse the directory of live sites from other trades first. Then create your website for free, add its address to your profile, and check it against the small business website checklist. For every free option, see how to get a free website for your small business.