renting a theater

[dstevens]

Had this crazy idea.....

there's a theater in my area where I can rent a 45 seat theater for $100/hour (on a weeknight).

I'm thinking of taking about an hour of my best shorts. (Let's assume other people will enjoy them).

I'm not expecting to make money - in fact, I'd rather just pay the $100 out of my pocket and make it free admission.

Part of our discussions have been trying to fill the seats with family and friends - one of my associates think we can 40 cast/crew/friends/family members in there no problem.

My thought is we send out flyers to local papers, arts zines, put up some flyers on college campuses, art galleries, etc. We aim for some good publicity and network with other filmmakers in the area. But I'd be glad if 1 or 2 little local papers sent anyone. I don't think we'd fill 45 seats even.

So which sounds better:

Fill the theater with people you know, who are probably just going to say 'good job'

15 seats filled and a few articles in local papers?

just a thought...

 

[safarijoe]

Pay another 200 bucks and have a film festival. Charge an entrance fee that'll cover your expenses. Get a trophy, send out some announcements and you'll be in business.

 

[MojoTrancer]

Either way, see if you can get a piece of the concessions. That's where the biggest profits are for theaters.

 

[wabbit]

Either way, see if you can get a piece of the concessions. That's where the biggest profits are for theaters.

Biggest profit? That is their only profit. $.75 of every boxoffice dollar goes back to distributor (every dollar, not dollar of profit). In other words, it doesn't matter what your theatre charges, $10 or $20, 75% goes to movie distributor. No other wholeseller can get away with that monopoly standard.

So if you bought a ticket for say $10 the theatre just got $2.50 to run electricity, A/C, rent, taxes, business overhead, and labor (the projectionist, ticket seller, manager, guys that clean all the crap left on floor by people that wouldn't be that rude anywhere else but when hidden in the dark) for the next two hours.

Without concession profits movie theaters could not stay in business the way things are set up right now. Something to remember next time you want to support your local independent movie house (http://www.alternet.org/movies/34016/ ).

By the way dstevens, do you have 35mm print to run or is this theater set-up to handle your method of display? Most smaller movie houses do not have a lot of projector choices (usually just 35 and sometimes 16).

Cheers