Small screens, full rooms: the neighbourhood cinema is winning
While multiplexes cut screenings, single-screen cinemas with eighty seats are selling out on weeknights.
The Lumen has eighty-two seats, one screen and a popcorn machine older than most of its audience. On a wet Tuesday in October, every seat was taken.
Across the city, small cinemas are reporting their best autumn in years. The reasons they give are surprisingly similar: a programme chosen by people, introductions before screenings, and the feeling of watching something together.
Streaming gave people everything. We give them one thing, at eight o’clock.
“Streaming gave people everything,” says one programmer. “We give them one thing, at eight o’clock, and that turns out to be what they wanted.”
Membership schemes help, too. At the Lumen, members pay a monthly fee and see as many films as they like. Most come twice a week.
