Last week, Cleveland City Council voted to restructure a loan made by the city to Detroit-Shoreway for the Capitol’s extensive renovations in 2009. The theater, which is owned by DSCDO and operated by Cleveland Cinemas, now has two more years of breathing room before it must begin making payments on the principal of the $1.5 million loan. Until September, 2018, the theater will only be required to make monthly “good will” payments of $100.
But the city is also asking that the theater develop concrete marketing plans to increase its business. Currently, the Capitol attracts 50,000 visitors per year. That’s less by half than initial projections, based on community surveys.
Jenny Spencer, DSCDO’s Managing Director, who led the meeting Tuesday, said that 50,000 visitors per year is enough to “keep the lights on,” but certainly not enough to pay back the loan, and not enough to make capital improvements — pun, this time, unintended — which are becoming necessary, even though the theater is only seven years old. Pricey new digital projection equipment, spot treatment for the theater’s old plaster, and cosmetic updates like new carpeting are all on the wish list, (in that order).
On the fundraising front, Spencer announced an inaugural benefit event, a gala-type big-ticket shindig scheduled for April 21, 2017, about which there are as yet few public details.
On the customer-attraction front, DSCDO is enlisting the neighbors. The meeting Tuesday, with gratis popcorn and veggie plates on the Capitol’s second-floor mezzanine, was positioned as a re-establishment of the “Friends of the Capitol Theatre” group. Given that movie theaters attract the highest percentage of their customers from the immediate neighborhood — the Cedar Lee being the region’s notable exception, due to its unique programming — Detroit-Shoreway wants community members to be the theater’s biggest champions.
And they are. The meeting’s attendees told stories of their personal outreach and marketing among social networks. Many of them said they forward Capitol emails to contacts who they think might enjoy certain films, for instance. Others said they regularly organize “dinner and a movie” outings with friends.
But those efforts aren’t quite enough, in the long-term — at least not without a critical mass of such efforts — and Cleveland Cinemas’ wider publicity tactics have been frustratingly hit-or-miss, said Dave Huffman, the local theater chain’s director of marketing.
Though special events continue to do very well — the upcoming Seventh annual 12 Hours of Terror all-night movie marathon (October 15-16) is expected to be the biggest yet, collecting in a single night what most movies collect in a full one-month run, Huffman said — other efforts have fallen far short.
Films in the summer “Capitol Selects” series, for instance, were largely very poorly attended. And attempts to market the Capitol to Spanish-speaking audiences have failed dramatically.
“We’ve talked to every Spanish-speaking organization in town, and they all are incredibly enthusiastic,” Huffman said, “but people aren’t showing up for the movies.”
After pleading with a studio to get the mainstream Spanish-language film No Manches Frida, Huffman said, the Capitol posted the second-lowest gross in the country for that film. Box-office performances like that jeopardize the theater’s ability to get additional titles from the studio.
Therein lies the biggest challenge and Catch-22 for the Capitol, said Huffman. The theater hasn’t attracted enough business to convince studios to grant them certain films — they wanted to show Snowden at the Capitol, for example, but the studio said no — but they can’t attract the business they’d like without titles that people are interested in.
That said, marketing efforts continue apace. Screened at the Tuesday meeting was a new 30-second clip that will soon precede all films at the Capitol, a trailer explaining the Capitol’s renovations and its importance in the community. Additionally, the Capitol on Tuesday began its fall documentary series, and October will be saturated with cult horror classics in honor of the season.
Also encouraging are the neighborhood advocates — young professionals, mid-career types, seniors, and even a high-schooler, attending with his dad — who helped brainstorm additional special events and grassroots strategies long after the meeting had officially run its course.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2016.
I’d love to be able to get up to the Capital (and Cedar Lee) for more films as I love their midnight movies and the independent/special films they show. If we had better public transportation options from Kent/Akron to Cleveland that would be MUCH more likely. As it is I have to drive the 50 minutes to Cleveland and back to enjoy a show which is not always feasible.
My wife and I have been going there since it opened, as it is never crowded or rowdy, the way too many big box multiplexes are (I can’t stand them).
And perhaps that is the problem…the Capitol is always half-full…sometimes a lot less.
Some folks might even claim that only educated East Siders are film buffs and that West Siders are dumb-asses or simply just don’t care…but that’s bullshit.
Maybe if the Capitol was operated in the manner that the Cedar Lee is, folks might come from places other than Detroit-Shoreway and Gordon Square. We live well west of both…and it’s our go-to movie theater…a lot closer than Shaker Square, by far.
I hope to hell the Capitol survives. If it does not, Cleveland will have suffered a MAJOR cultural loss. And for what? Why? Beats me…
Chuckles the clown
I contacted the Capitol on behalf of a non-profit group that wanted to show a film there.
We thought this not only was a great opportunity for us, but also a great opportunity to promote a local theater. We have a large following; many are folks who are not from that neighborhood who would have been introduced to the Capitol and the Detroit-Shoreway area’s restaurants for the first time. Plus, the film (and the Capitol) would have been promoted to our thousands of followers on social media.
We didn’t expect to get one of the screens for free, but as a non-profit, we were hoping for less than market rate. The only option available to us was the smallest theater, fewer than 100 seats, and the cost of renting that theater was so high that in order to even make $5/person/ticket (the filmmaker was donating the use of the film and was paying his own way to Cleveland to present it), we would have had to have charged $25/person. We asked about providing wine or beer and appetizers for our supporters, so that we could increase the ticket price to make more money since it was meant to be a fundraiser. We were told our supporters would have to purchase their snacks and drinks from the concession stand. In other words, the management of a theater that routinely is nearly empty refused to work with us to bring additional, potentially new patrons to the theater. We were forced to tell the filmmaker we were unable to accept his generous offer.
Perhaps if the owners and operators of the Capitol weren’t pennywise and pound foolish, they would be able to pay back what they owe to the city of Cleveland. The fact that they cannot should be an embarrassment to them and should have had them thinking about marketing plans years ago.
I do not understand why The Capitol Theater dies not show independent films like Cedar Lee? I’m a Westside who routinely visits Cedar Lee but has only a handful of times frequented the Capitol, if the programming were more compelling, I’d be more likely to go, but why visit an enconfirtsbke theater to see the same titles I can see anywhere, that’s the problem.