Cineworld

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New Company Logo, following 2005 rebrand.


Cineworld Middlesbrough

Cineworld Cinemas is a multiplex cinema chain in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and Jersey. It is a subsidiary of The Blackstone Group. The first Cineworld opened in Stevenage in July 1996. The chain now operates 72 cinemas in the UK, one in the Republic of Ireland (in Dublin) and one in Jersey (in St. Helier) as a result of its takeover of the UK and Ireland operations of the French cinema company, UGC. It is the second largest cinema operator in the UK with over 800 screens, and the owner of the single largest multiplex by screens and customer base in Ireland. Cineworld Glasgow Renfrew Street is the tallest cinema in the world and the busiest, by customer base, in the UK. The biggest cinema in the company's chain based on the number of screens is in Sheffield with 20 screens.

In July 2005 it began integrating the two chains, taking the opportunity to introduce a new company logotype (with a shortened name, "Cineworld Cinemas"). Cineworld retained the UGC Unlimited Card (taken from Virgin Cinemas originally) and the UGC in-house magazine, also called Unlimited. The rebranding process of the former UGC cinemas was completed in September 2005, and as of April 2006 the companies websites and booking lines were merged into one combined service at cineworld.co.uk and the Cineworld Ireland site was completed in late 2007 at cineworld.ie Cineworld has now also taken on the staff benefit scheme of a 'cast pass' named simply as 'Cinepass'. This ID card allows hourly paid staff who have worked for the company for longer than 3 months to receive 40% discount on food along with a free admittance of up to 2 tickets per day. Salaried staff members such as managers and technicians also receive the 40% discount plus an additional admittance of 1 bringing their total to 3 free tickets per day. Cineworld have also honoured the "Guest Pass" issued by UGC, which allowed a member of staff serving more than five years to nominate a person to receive up to 3 tickets per day, though any staff completing five years with the company after the takeover do not qualify.

As part of the merger with the former UGC brand the Office of Fair Trading announced that Cineworld must divest itself of six of its locations: Bishop's Stortford, Ealing, Slough, Sunderland, Swindon and Wigan. These have now been sold to and rebranded as Empire Cinemas. The Cineworld Birmingham — Great Park site was also later sold to Empire Cinemas and rebranded by the end of 2006 leaving the company with 71 total sites.

As part of further developments plans have been made to build more Cineworld sites and within time older original Cineworld sites will gain the newer logo types (cineworld cinemas) as they undergo refurbishment (refurbishment will also be carried out at older former UGC sites as required, although the rebranding as basically already done so).

Contents

[edit] Current locations

[edit] Original "Cineworld Multiplex Cinemas"

[edit] Former "UGC Cinemas"

[edit] Newline (hybrid) "Cineworld Cinemas"

[edit] Forthcoming Cineworld cinemas

  • Aberdeen — Union Square - 10 Screens - Part of the £250 million Union Square retail and leisure development, due to be completed mid/late 2008. It will have around 2500 seats.
  • Aldershot - Contracts signed, site due to open 2009.
  • Blaenau Ffestiniog - Plans due to be announced mid 2008.
  • Haverhill - 5 Screens - Due to open late November 2008. It will have over 980 seats and throughout the 5 auditoria costing a total of £9.2 million and was officially announced as a Cineworld site in early 2007.
  • Witney - Contracts signed, due to open 2009.

[edit] Former Cineworld locations

The following location have recently been sold to Empire Cinemas

Major Cinema Chains in the United Kingdom
AMC - Apollo - Cineworld - Empire - Odeon
Picturehouse - Showcase - Vue - Ward Anderson

[edit] External links