Keep The Movie Theater As It Is

To the Editor:

This is in response to the letter in The Bee last week about restoring Edmond Town Hall to greatness [“Help Restore ‘The Edmond’ To Greatness,” Letter Hive, 6/3/11]. I appreciate the author’s enthusiasm about the building and wish him success in his endeavor to raise money to restore the building. However, I disagree with him on his plan for the movie theater.

The business model for the town hall theater is to show second run movies and charge $2 per ticket. The projection equipment there is long since paid for and works just fine. Converting it to a digital cinema will only increase costs. Film distributors would like theaters to convert to digital to save the distributors the cost of making release prints. The theater would still have to pay to show the film and would have to bear the cost of a new projection system. In addition, like all things digital, it will need periodic upgrades which will add to the expense. With the additional costs, what would they have to charge for a ticket? Much more than $2.

Keep things the way they are.

Patrick Heigel

7 Crown View Drive, Sandy Hook                                     June 8, 2011