Here at the Kiggins we love movies. All kinds of movies. And over the past several years we’ve attempted to bring the widest variety of films to downtown Vancouver, from Hollywood classics to award-winning foreign films, from cutting edge animation to powerful documentaries. In 2018 to date we’ve presented 90 feature films plus the always popular Oscar Nominated Shorts programs. Many of these films have been Vancouver exclusives, some have even been Northwest premieres.
But sadly, it seems that our current model is not proving sustainable. Though we occasionally have big hits like RBG (our longest running film to date), WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? and THE WIFE, too many of our films often play to just a handful of appreciative die hard film fans.
So, why don’t we get more popular films? Well, in a nutshell, we try to get the most popular film available to us as a single screen independent theater. But due to our proximity to the Regal City Center (whose national buying power and sheer number of screens limit what and when we can get many films) and our unconventional schedule for film runs (due to our extensive list of monthly events like Science on Tap, Comedy on Tap, Noir Nights, and private rentals) we just can’t compete.
So what’s our solution? Though we stand by the quality of our past programming, going forward we are going to focus more on “event cinema”. We are planning to expand on our repertory film programs like Noir Nights by adding more classic film series and one time special presentations. There will be more live events and touring film programs like the next week’s Warren Miller screening. And we will also be more flexible on times and days when private rentals can occur (book your holiday party or event now!). When bigger indie films are made available to us, we will still attempt to schedule them when we can. We’ll still be showing all our holiday staples. And don’t worry, we are still plan on presenting the Oscar Nominated Short Film Programs in early 2019!
For those of you who regularly took risks and came to all of our programming…a huge THANK YOU! We hope you continue supporting us as we evolve! And for those of you who follow us, but rarely come to visit, hopefully we can entice you to “Make Time for a Movie” and join us soon!
Make sure to continue to follow us on social media, check out our website and keep reading your Kiggins Theatre News for these and other updates!