Covid considerations required the installation of new ventilation systems at many cinemas, which themselves incurred a major cost, while the hot summer has exacerbated the hit taken from the unprecedented electricity prices, ERR reports.

The CEO of one smaller cinema chain, Cinamon, said the electricity bill increased by around a third for July alone, which may result in ticket price rises, even as newer and more economical cinema tech uses about half as much electricity as the older equipment.

Andac Bagioglu, Cinamon CEO, said: "I don't know what our competitors are doing to deal with it, but I can say that from 2018-2019 we had already reduced our electricity costs, by changing our hardware and also automating our systems."

"This meant the impact of the increase in electricity prices has been easier for us than for traditional cinemas, which are still using old hardware," Bagioglu went on.

Meanwhile CEO of Sõprus Kino in Tallinn, Ivar Murd, said that while there were no plans to increase entry fees over and above the one-euro hike necessitated by the cinema's partners putting up their prices, the company hoped for state age next year.

Murd said: "All the prices have gone up. They have gone up as the security services prices, water, heating, all products and transport prices have risen. The beer you drink in the cinema, even; all the prices have gone up, there's nothing we can do about that here."

The Apollo Kino chain says it has no immediate plans to raise ticket prices.

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