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How Alamo makes a moviegoing experience to remember
Thursday March 21st 2013The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Tex., is more than just a collision between cuisine and cinema. The venues are known as much for serving food with flicks as they are for their draconian policies against texting or late arrivals to screenings.
This is a movie geek’s dream theatre, where almost every night you can catch something enjoyable surrounded by like-minded patrons, while at the same time sipping a local brew and munching on baked-to-order chocolate-chip cookies.
We have many exceptional venues in Toronto that do wonderful things, but none does it all in a single space like the Alamo Drafthouse.
From the 24-hour marathon that is “Butt Numb A Thon” to food-and-film theme nights, there’s plenty to celebrate about the place. What sets it apart from many of its competitors is what sets the likes of Disney World apart from most other theme parks — it just seems to get it right. There’s seamlessness to the evening. Time Magazine called it “the best theatre ever,” and the hyperbole seems to fit. It’s not just a restaurant that shows movies, or a cinema with food and booze; it’s a unified experience in a way that’s imitated but rarely matched.
This is why the company has successfully expanded its moviegoing vision across the U.S. = there are six Alamo venues in Austin alone. Since its founding with a single bare-bones cinema in 1997, Alamo locations have opened across Texas, as well as in Colorado, Michigan, New York, Virginia, California and elsewhere, with further plans for expansion.
Founder and CEO Tim League argues that the key is found in its diversity of offerings. “There are people that like to go see Iron Man 3 on opening weekend . . . but there are also people who come for our monthly documentary screenings, our cult classics or our foreign cinema.”
This produces “micro audiences,” he says, and thus there’s a “more stable audience that keeps us going where some theatres fail.”
Recently the Alamo brand has branched out further. From the associated Fantastic Fest genre film festival emerged Drafthouse Films, a distribution company meant to help find an audience for what League describes as “films that I love that (are) challenging.”
Several of these films are set to play at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox next week, creating what TIFF programmer Jesse Wente calls a “home away from home” for these works, including Miami Connection, a motorcycle/ninja/martial arts film that went largely unseen during its 1987 release, and director Ted Kotcheff’s controversial 1971 Outback odyssey Wake in Fright.
Not all titles under the Drafthouse brand are schlock cult favourites — take Oscar-nominated Bullhead or The Act of Killing, a harrowing doc that made waves at TIFF and is sure to make a strong Oscar run in 2013.
Still, hosting titles from Drafthouse Films is a far cry being home to an actual Alamo Drafthouse theatre, which is about much more than the movie itself.
Could the concept work in this city? Wente is philosophical. “Lightbox is a different kind of temple to cinema worship than Drafthouse — we’re all praying to the same thing, just in different ways, and I think there’s plenty of room for both,” he says.
Toronto’s cinema scene already shares much with the Alamo sensibility, where we often ignore the so-called barriers between “high” and “low.” Venues like Lightbox, the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, and numerous local rep theatres have long brought offbeat films to an eager audience in Toronto.
“I’ve never really been one for (these) distinctions,” argues Wente. “One of the joys of cinema is finding the unexpected links between movies that may otherwise seem disconnected.”
While a Toronto Alamo location is something League says he’s considered, and Toronto is “certainly the right kind of market for what we’re trying to do,” for now the company is concentrating on its own side of the border.
League is well aware of potential growing pains as Alamo expands its number of venues. To keep things integrated within the community, they “hire a local chef and local creative director in each market to build a community . . . so that it’s not like we’re doing everything out of Austin.”
Their model isn’t found in following other cinema chains: “We take inspiration sometimes from Whole Foods. They do a pretty good job of sourcing locally, they have a great presence and they do a lot of community work whenever they go into a new location, becoming a part as opposed to just sort of leeching off the community.”
After all the work he’s put into the business side of the theatre business, does League still have a passion for films?
“I got into this business because I love movies and I feel it would be the saddest thing in the world to have become successful in a business and what was lost in the process was never watching movies,” League says.
And until Alamo decides to expand north of the border, there is at least one compelling reason for those who share League’s passion to book a flight to Texas.
Source: Toronto Star
Front Page, Industry News
How Alamo makes a moviegoing experience to remember
Thursday March 21st 2013The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Tex., is more than just a collision between cuisine and cinema. The venues are known as much for serving food with flicks as they are for their draconian policies against texting or late arrivals to screenings.
This is a movie geek’s dream theatre, where almost every night you can catch something enjoyable surrounded by like-minded patrons, while at the same time sipping a local brew and munching on baked-to-order chocolate-chip cookies.
We have many exceptional venues in Toronto that do wonderful things, but none does it all in a single space like the Alamo Drafthouse.
From the 24-hour marathon that is “Butt Numb A Thon” to food-and-film theme nights, there’s plenty to celebrate about the place. What sets it apart from many of its competitors is what sets the likes of Disney World apart from most other theme parks — it just seems to get it right. There’s seamlessness to the evening. Time Magazine called it “the best theatre ever,” and the hyperbole seems to fit. It’s not just a restaurant that shows movies, or a cinema with food and booze; it’s a unified experience in a way that’s imitated but rarely matched.
This is why the company has successfully expanded its moviegoing vision across the U.S. = there are six Alamo venues in Austin alone. Since its founding with a single bare-bones cinema in 1997, Alamo locations have opened across Texas, as well as in Colorado, Michigan, New York, Virginia, California and elsewhere, with further plans for expansion.
Founder and CEO Tim League argues that the key is found in its diversity of offerings. “There are people that like to go see Iron Man 3 on opening weekend . . . but there are also people who come for our monthly documentary screenings, our cult classics or our foreign cinema.”
This produces “micro audiences,” he says, and thus there’s a “more stable audience that keeps us going where some theatres fail.”
Recently the Alamo brand has branched out further. From the associated Fantastic Fest genre film festival emerged Drafthouse Films, a distribution company meant to help find an audience for what League describes as “films that I love that (are) challenging.”
Several of these films are set to play at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox next week, creating what TIFF programmer Jesse Wente calls a “home away from home” for these works, including Miami Connection, a motorcycle/ninja/martial arts film that went largely unseen during its 1987 release, and director Ted Kotcheff’s controversial 1971 Outback odyssey Wake in Fright.
Not all titles under the Drafthouse brand are schlock cult favourites — take Oscar-nominated Bullhead or The Act of Killing, a harrowing doc that made waves at TIFF and is sure to make a strong Oscar run in 2013.
Still, hosting titles from Drafthouse Films is a far cry being home to an actual Alamo Drafthouse theatre, which is about much more than the movie itself.
Could the concept work in this city? Wente is philosophical. “Lightbox is a different kind of temple to cinema worship than Drafthouse — we’re all praying to the same thing, just in different ways, and I think there’s plenty of room for both,” he says.
Toronto’s cinema scene already shares much with the Alamo sensibility, where we often ignore the so-called barriers between “high” and “low.” Venues like Lightbox, the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, and numerous local rep theatres have long brought offbeat films to an eager audience in Toronto.
“I’ve never really been one for (these) distinctions,” argues Wente. “One of the joys of cinema is finding the unexpected links between movies that may otherwise seem disconnected.”
While a Toronto Alamo location is something League says he’s considered, and Toronto is “certainly the right kind of market for what we’re trying to do,” for now the company is concentrating on its own side of the border.
League is well aware of potential growing pains as Alamo expands its number of venues. To keep things integrated within the community, they “hire a local chef and local creative director in each market to build a community . . . so that it’s not like we’re doing everything out of Austin.”
Their model isn’t found in following other cinema chains: “We take inspiration sometimes from Whole Foods. They do a pretty good job of sourcing locally, they have a great presence and they do a lot of community work whenever they go into a new location, becoming a part as opposed to just sort of leeching off the community.”
After all the work he’s put into the business side of the theatre business, does League still have a passion for films?
“I got into this business because I love movies and I feel it would be the saddest thing in the world to have become successful in a business and what was lost in the process was never watching movies,” League says.
And until Alamo decides to expand north of the border, there is at least one compelling reason for those who share League’s passion to book a flight to Texas.
Source: Toronto Star
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Front Page, Industry News
How Alamo makes a moviegoing experience to remember
Thursday March 21st 2013The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Tex., is more than just a collision between cuisine and cinema. The venues are known as much for serving food with flicks as they are for their draconian policies against texting or late arrivals to screenings.
This is a movie geek’s dream theatre, where almost every night you can catch something enjoyable surrounded by like-minded patrons, while at the same time sipping a local brew and munching on baked-to-order chocolate-chip cookies.
We have many exceptional venues in Toronto that do wonderful things, but none does it all in a single space like the Alamo Drafthouse.
From the 24-hour marathon that is “Butt Numb A Thon” to food-and-film theme nights, there’s plenty to celebrate about the place. What sets it apart from many of its competitors is what sets the likes of Disney World apart from most other theme parks — it just seems to get it right. There’s seamlessness to the evening. Time Magazine called it “the best theatre ever,” and the hyperbole seems to fit. It’s not just a restaurant that shows movies, or a cinema with food and booze; it’s a unified experience in a way that’s imitated but rarely matched.
This is why the company has successfully expanded its moviegoing vision across the U.S. = there are six Alamo venues in Austin alone. Since its founding with a single bare-bones cinema in 1997, Alamo locations have opened across Texas, as well as in Colorado, Michigan, New York, Virginia, California and elsewhere, with further plans for expansion.
Founder and CEO Tim League argues that the key is found in its diversity of offerings. “There are people that like to go see Iron Man 3 on opening weekend . . . but there are also people who come for our monthly documentary screenings, our cult classics or our foreign cinema.”
This produces “micro audiences,” he says, and thus there’s a “more stable audience that keeps us going where some theatres fail.”
Recently the Alamo brand has branched out further. From the associated Fantastic Fest genre film festival emerged Drafthouse Films, a distribution company meant to help find an audience for what League describes as “films that I love that (are) challenging.”
Several of these films are set to play at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox next week, creating what TIFF programmer Jesse Wente calls a “home away from home” for these works, including Miami Connection, a motorcycle/ninja/martial arts film that went largely unseen during its 1987 release, and director Ted Kotcheff’s controversial 1971 Outback odyssey Wake in Fright.
Not all titles under the Drafthouse brand are schlock cult favourites — take Oscar-nominated Bullhead or The Act of Killing, a harrowing doc that made waves at TIFF and is sure to make a strong Oscar run in 2013.
Still, hosting titles from Drafthouse Films is a far cry being home to an actual Alamo Drafthouse theatre, which is about much more than the movie itself.
Could the concept work in this city? Wente is philosophical. “Lightbox is a different kind of temple to cinema worship than Drafthouse — we’re all praying to the same thing, just in different ways, and I think there’s plenty of room for both,” he says.
Toronto’s cinema scene already shares much with the Alamo sensibility, where we often ignore the so-called barriers between “high” and “low.” Venues like Lightbox, the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, and numerous local rep theatres have long brought offbeat films to an eager audience in Toronto.
“I’ve never really been one for (these) distinctions,” argues Wente. “One of the joys of cinema is finding the unexpected links between movies that may otherwise seem disconnected.”
While a Toronto Alamo location is something League says he’s considered, and Toronto is “certainly the right kind of market for what we’re trying to do,” for now the company is concentrating on its own side of the border.
League is well aware of potential growing pains as Alamo expands its number of venues. To keep things integrated within the community, they “hire a local chef and local creative director in each market to build a community . . . so that it’s not like we’re doing everything out of Austin.”
Their model isn’t found in following other cinema chains: “We take inspiration sometimes from Whole Foods. They do a pretty good job of sourcing locally, they have a great presence and they do a lot of community work whenever they go into a new location, becoming a part as opposed to just sort of leeching off the community.”
After all the work he’s put into the business side of the theatre business, does League still have a passion for films?
“I got into this business because I love movies and I feel it would be the saddest thing in the world to have become successful in a business and what was lost in the process was never watching movies,” League says.
And until Alamo decides to expand north of the border, there is at least one compelling reason for those who share League’s passion to book a flight to Texas.
Source: Toronto Star
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