Over a year ago, back in the Spring of 2001 two different storms blew out sections of this street sign's faces. What has Wallace Theaters done about it? They just arranged what face sections they had left over to the east elevation of the sign for west bound traffic to view. Some fix! When the photo is posted you'll see the "Cache 8" face section in the header area is popping out of its retainer. One good storm and that thing will go flying. I just hope it doesn't hit a car or a pedestrian when it sets sail.
Technically, Lawton's city sign ordinance requires the sign to be completely repaired and in proper working order. But Wallace is able to slide since the city doesn't bother to enforce the sign ordinance. Being in the sign business, that pisses me off since it lets our competitors do really poor quality work and not even bother to get the permits to do the installs. My group does everything by the letter and even build UL Listed stuff --basically out of selfish pride I guess.
When I look at this theater I wonder what ever happened to company pride or just making sure the front end of one's business doesn't look like crap. If Wallace is willing to let the outside of this theater look this bad, one certainly couldn't count on "film done right" in this place either.
More on the jerry-rig fix with the sign. Even though west bound Cache Road traffic can "see" the sign (but barely read it because of distance problems) the traffic cannot turn left into the theater parking lot. US-62 and Cache Road split apart in a freeway type interchange so only east bound traffic can enter the theater. But arranging those face sections for east bound traffic wouldn't work either since the main entry is too far west for one to read the copy. If you drive far enough to read the Pronto letters you've missed your turn and have to go through a big pain just to get back around to the theater entry. Overall, it is just a bad location because of the access problems.
This theater has been losing money ever since Dickinson Theaters opened the Central Mall 12 in downtown Lawton. The new theater is far enough away that it doesn't get pinned down in an allocation arrangement. If a film is playing at the Cache 8, you can see the same thing downtown. Check out the photo of the Cache 8 parking lot, taken Saturday, July 6. One would think there would be a lot more cars with "Men In Black 2" running in its opening weekend. Well, the mall theater has big crowds for their MIB-2 shows.
And this is not to say the mall theater is great by any measure. Stadium seating? Try more like bleacher seating. 12 auditoriums, most of them tiny and only 2 equipped for DTS --this is a theater that opened in 2001 and has only 2 DTS screens! On top of that, it is widely known the theater management is too lazy to even put the DTS discs in the players for any show!
My hope is for Wallace Theaters to come to their senses and just close down the Cache 8. If they would have done this already, they might have been able to get Loews, Home Depot or Target to buy the property. But those companies are already planning their new locations elsewhere.
With the Cache 8 gone, the one good theater in the area (the Carmike 8 with its 8 DTS screens and two built to THX standards) will get many of the same films as the mall theater and not lose out big titles like MIB-2 to a dump of a complex. The Carmike theater does well in direct show to show competition with the new mall theater for the basic reasons of having better picture and sound, not to mention a more professionally displayed theater environment. The Carmike 8 was built in 1994 but still looks pretty new. Jack Connor, the manager there, has done an excellent job on maintaining his theater. It is time for the Cache 8 to just get out of the way.
Six months later, the theater was still not using the marquee ... to the point that the electric to the sign was turned off. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, both faces were replaced and the electric turned back on.
Obviously, Wallace is just waiting out their lease. I'm sure the auditoriums and booth are just like their sign.
Adam, it sounds like the Carmike theater in Muskogee had a really bad structural design on their sign. Inadequate sized retainers and other items like poorly joined face sections are big invitations to sign face blow outs.
The Cache 8 sign had some past incidents, but previous tenants like United Artists and Litchfield didn't waste time getting the sign fixed. Wallace could be doing like you say and just waiting out their lease.
Some rumors suggest the Cache 8 may close at years end. One thing is certain, they are wasting money on operational expenses by keeping the place open. It won't even matter if their hopes of the Carmike 8 closing were to come true (not that it will even happen). Most will still avoid the Cache 8 and head to the mall theater just like they are doing now. They just need to give it up, close the place and stop being a spolier to the better Carmike theater down the street.
National Amusements built the All-Jersey Multiplex on the site of an old drive-in, wedged between the New Jersey Turnpike western spur and Routes 1-9. Two large signs ID the theater. The sign along the Turnpike is in excellent shape. The sign along Routes 1-9 got major storm damage in recent months and now looks horrible -- there are outlines where actual letters should be. Since the city of Newark is too poor to enforce its sign ordinances it isn't leaning on National Amusements to repair the sign).
To make matters worse, the All-Jersey Multiplex is in a poor location -- an industrial park near the foot of the Pulaski Skyway with no direct access from most of Newark. Even with such a location and bad access National Amusements is somehow able to keep it open. The competition is a 6-screen indie (ex-Loews) in central Newark, a 7-screen Regal in Jersey City and the 20-screen Loews Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth.
Bobby: Unfaithful is the latest Richard Gere movie and Undercover Brother 
is a homage to 70's blaxploitation pictures. 
Similarly, at the Carmike 8 in Decatur (a near "twin" of the one pictured above) a tree grew up on the east side of the sign. Solution -- put no lettering on the east side of the sign and leave the tree.
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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site
Since i work for wallace theaters, i can openly say that Wallace is NOT in the game for presentation. Wallace cuts corners to the MAXIMUM to gain every penny he can get out of his theaters.One the District managers, "Rants Bland" has alot to do with the shape of most of the wallace theaters now in operation. The Cache 8 is also under Rantz's belt as well as my theater. Rantz's boss however is slightly more reasonable. They come in and complain why things are in bad shape and make it look like the theater staff's fault. Our only back up are our work orders forms that we keep on file. These guys come in and nick-pic at alot of stuff and then nothing gets done about it.
The worst things at my theater The spotlight 14 in norman ok are the carpets not getting clean on a regular basis, lighting problems not getting fixed. For example, we have some large auditoruim lights that have not worked in 4 years and they are almost completly dark if it werent for the can lights on the side walls and most of the track lighting on the floor does not work. People have fallen and have gotten hurt because of it. We send in the accident reports and nothing gets done about it. The sound systems dont get maintained like they should and we have several sound problems in many auditoriums that go months without getting fixed. The tech wont even tune the speaker systems. We get complaints all the time and nothing gets done.My theater is making a goldmine for wallace and they wont but back some of that money to fix things. I guess thats wallace in a nutshell.
The Spotlight 14 in Norman has little competition nearby so I guess Wallace can get away with letting things slide on that location. But it is pretty disgusting that they do so. A lot of Regal locations are not well run, but I would be willing to bet the one just to the north on I-35 at Crossroads Mall is probably in noticeably better shape.
As for the Cache 8 here in Lawton, I just don't understand why they keep it open. How can it even be covering basic operational costs as empty as I see the parking lot? Wallace would likely save more money by simply closing the theater and leaving it dark until the lease ran out (whenever that may be). But isn't this circuit operating in bankruptcy or near that? In such cases, they may be able to get out of long term leases. I know that's one reason why so many theater companies have filed chapter 11 in the first place; it gives them a way to unload non-performing locations and keep the newer places. Carmike did this when they were in chapter 11.
As for my theater, people have filed lawsuits for accidents and wallace does pay them but he wont put any money into the theater. The regal 16 before it was bought out was going to the hole. Now its looking better. I dont watch movies at my theater, I go to the regal 16 or the AMC 24. All you get at my theater are dirty scratched up prints .Platter tower roller scratches mainly. And most of our projectionists dont know how to thread right. Small top and bottom loops. And some of our projectionists set a too tight stereo reader. My giggest complaints ( besides the scratches ) are that most of our projectionists team wont clean projectors between sets.The worst thing of all is that even though i have 3 years under my belt in projection is i cant tell people how to run the projectors right that includes cleaning threading ect...They wont give me the authority.I only get one night in booth to and thats stupid because im a good projectionist. I get all of my booth know how from this site ( Film-Tech ) and my presentations are ran well. I cant get anybody to log onto film-tech or become a member either.
Their theatres in Topeka and Lawrence are just as bad, but they own the market... If I only had a few million to open some competition...
I didnt realize how much Wallace was holding back on his theaters till i went to vegas and visited the Centry 18 in the Oasis casion hotel just west of the strip. The ticket and concession prices are very comparable to what my theater carges and the Centry 18 is all THX certified and well kept. Everything looks beautiful at the Centry 18.
Wallace bought out Hollywood Theaters right before they went bust back in Early May of 99 right before or right after the May 3rd tornado ( which i witnessed ). That summer i heard of all the big theater circuit's going bankrupt. Hollywood Theaters was in such dept that it looked like nobody could bring the theaters back to financial well being. Wallace survived that summer and finally got us out of dept. He closed alot of theaters in the process to help pay of all the creditors. Now these days Wallace is clean and free of dept but the downside is that all the monay the theaters make goes to the bigwigs and little or no money gets put back in for reapairs or remodeling or upgrades to the theaters.
I say if you want to make money you got to spend some. You cant polish a turd 
Justin, BE EMENSLY CAREFULL TALKING IN A NEGATIVE MANNOR TWORD YOUR THEATER AND THEN TRYING TO CONVINCE FELLOW EMPLOYEES TO LOG ON.
I got into a lot of hot water a few months back for doing that. I posted a negative comment (only one negative coment in a sea of possitive ones) that a fellow employee found, printed and distributed to other employees and managers.
If you want to help presentation at your theater, the last thing you want to have happen, is to loose the trust of fellow employees.
If i feel i have to make a negative remark, i use something to the effect of " At a theater i know of..... " , that way, people have a hard time proving I was talking about my theater.
just a thought...
But Mike is corrent in the manner of a back-stabbing coworker. In Wallace's case, any such efforts by other workers may fall on deaf ears. The people running Wallace Theaters obviously know they are running a slum of a circuit. So how is it going to matter when an employee or frustrated film fan like myself simply tells the truth about it. I know I'm not worried about what I have wrote. I have exaggerated nothing in terms of how terrible a theater the Cache 8 is in Lawton. Even if the theater chain somehow had the nerve to even attempt to sue me for libel over it, the case would be quickly thrown out of court (#1 on first admendment basis and #2 my having 100% factual grounds for my claims: their theater is terrible and should be closed).
How right you are mike but i seriously doubt anybody else from my theater will ever visit this site let alone become a member. The corporate office is the one really responsibe for what the theater looks like know. People at my theater just arent into the kind of things im into, that includes film-tech.
I will not post any more unpleasantries bout fellow co-worker work preformance.
Lights seem to be the biggest problem for wallace.They must be too expensive to keep going. We send in a work order or a purchase order and the corporate office says " woah, thats too expensive, were going to haft to find a cheaper way to do it or get someone to do it for free". Even in booth we call in for a projector problem and talk to our tech about it and he calls the corporate and tells them how much its gonna cost and the corporate office says something like " Woah, Woah, Woah, we dont have the money for that, its too expensive!!!" " Hey, your going to haft to wing it for a while ". Unless its a major problem where the theater is dead then they will pay to have it fixed but will only go through the cheapest company available to get it fixed. If its a christie part it usually gets replaced with another if that part is responsible for keeping the projector going.Stereo sound heads and air pots always fail at my theater and always take the longest to get replaced.
I guess my manager knows who to go through for the splicing tape. Does your booth staff use film-guard?
Wallace isnt in the game for presentation or all his high profile theaters like yours and mine would get the good treatment. Wallace is making a fortune off of us!!
I think their is one other high profile theater (their could be more) in the wallace 2 chain, the one in Mobile Alabama. I think its a 14 screen aswell.I would like to see them get in on this website.
. Id say that all but 3 people including my self can do the things i can do in our booth and one of our booth employees can do more than all of us. The rest are just not intrested to further their booth knowledge and i get the boot down stairs to work with the kiddies and make shure they clean and stock between sets. What a joke. We dont have a problem with ordering film guard. We always have 2 to 3 extra bottles but it hardly gets used on the prints via the media cleaners. The corporate office must really hate texas. I wonder how well the Hawaii theaters are holding up compared to the ones here stateside.
I remember when the Hollywood complex in Garland was a fairly nice theater (but then it was pretty new back in the early 1990s). It is one thing to allow a modest looking sign to stay broken for awhile. Visually elaborate signs, such as the Hollywood sign, must stay well maintained for all the extra attention it draws to itself.
As for the "LLY" section that keeps going dark, that sounds like a basic flaw in wiring design and power supply. The open channel letters and chase lights are drawing too much power through their circuit and the ballast controlling the "LLY" letters are failing as the weakest link in the chain. If they ran another circuit to the sign and used the right kind of ballasts they would not have the HO-WOOD problem.
Somebody from National Amusements must lurk around Film-Tech!