More Turks started going to live-performance theaters last year, while cinema tickets sales saw a nearly 4-million decrease.

According to Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), 64.8 million cinema tickets were sold in 2018, a 5.4% decrease year-on-year.

Despite the drop in ticket sales, the number of movie theaters went up 6.2% to 2,858. Only two provinces — northeastern Ardahan and southeastern Şırnak — were still without a cinema in 2018.

The number of movies shown in Turkish movie theaters was 65,501 with an increase of 12.5%. Domestically produced movies outpaced foreign movies in percentage increase, jumping 19.3% while foreign films rose 7.3%. There were 39.2 million local film audiences with an increase of 3.4% and 25.6 million foreign film audiences with a decrease of 16.4%.

The number of theatergoers soared 11.9% in the 2017/18 season year-on-year, reaching 7.84 million viewers. The capacity of Turkish theaters increased 9.5%.

The number of live performances at Turkish theaters rose by 6.6% to a total of 33,772 in the last season. The number of the local copyrighted shows increased by 6.9% and foreign/translated shows increased by 5.3%.

The audience of local copyrighted works went up 7.8% while foreign/translated works' audience rose 26.7%.

Adult shows attracted 14.2% more viewers in the 2017/18 season, while children works' audiences had a 9.1% increase.