The 113 year old Palace Theater in central IL

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I retired 12/31/25 after running a non-profit single screen for forty years. I'd be happy to talk to you about it. I may not be encouraging, but I'll try to point out the landmines.
And I second getting involved with the Art House Convergence.

Martin, Congrats on your retirement and enjoy! I did the same about 8 years ago... Even after moving to Nashville, I still got calls and did remote work for some customers for several years, but eventually asked them to phase me out...

[Leo Enticknap]

There is nothing in the rules of running a non-profit that says you can't pay people the same or better than the commercial equivalent would have, and many do.

So much so that in these parts, the issue of nonprofit executive pay has become a political hot potato. In the aftermath of someone scouring the 990s (unlike a private citizen's tax return, these are public records, easily available online once filed), it became public knowledge that a local hospital to me was paying its CEO $4.5m a year, shortly after it had laid off a bunch of nurses and support workers, pleading poverty. It was widely pointed out that this figure was roughly double what the equivalent job in the private sector would pay, in the wake of which a campaign started for a ballot initiative that, if it had passed, would have made a nonprofit that paid any employee more than the POTUS ineligible for state funding. The campaign fizzled out before it got very far, but it shone a spotlight on what has been called the "nonprofit industrial complex."

[Martin McCaffery]

As they used to say at conventions, "Non-Profit is a tax status, not a business plan."

The medical industrial complex is probably the worst. Blue Cross Blue Shield is a non-profit in this state but is as avaricious as any private insurer. And they've got the political clout to stay that way.

[Jesse Crooks]

We run a first-run single screen, but it had already converted to a non-profit before we took over management. It is certainly a challenge compared to our 2-3 screen theaters. It's an art house, but since it's a single screen we are more willing to bring in commercial films that we know the community will support, especially family-oriented films. When it comes to special programming, navigating the distributor politics can be difficult. After years of having to cancel scheduled prime time screenings because the first run title was performing too well and the distributor wouldn't allow us to preempt it, we now only program a couple 7pm special events per month. We are able to run special events outside of the regular booking window though. We have an 11am Sunday classics series, and a monthly 9:45pm horror series and cult series, which both do very well. The other big challenge is planning out your schedule so that you can guarantee that you can book films that you expect to be big hits, which can mean intentionally booking weaker films in the preceding weeks so that the distributor of that film won't give you a hard time about dropping it for the big title you've been planning to open.

Arthouse Convergence is a great place to start. They have a Single Screen Exhibitors Network affinity group that I think meets monthly.

[Bill Seipel]

I just re-ran some numbers from last year and looks like increasing tickets to $9 (we charge $7) would've likely got us to break-even.

Granted, we had a 1/3 reduction in ticket sales and had we sold more tickets, it would've been better.

However, it still means 60% of our ticket price goes to the studios....

[Ryan Gallagher]

I just re-ran some numbers from last year and looks like increasing tickets to $9 (we charge $7) would've likely got us to break-even.

Granted, we had a 1/3 reduction in ticket sales and had we sold more tickets, it would've been better.

However, it still means 60% of our ticket price goes to the studios....

That seems pretty darn cheap by today's standards, but all depends on what your market is. Considering an Apple 4K rental is $5.99 (everywhere), and an "early access" rental is $19.99. I guess in person cinema prices vary greatly by market with the independent screens. We are a big metro area, but even our non-profit classics still are 15$ for an adult non fan-club price (although apparently $3 of that is a "preservation fee"). For comparison AMC in our area is $16 for a "standard" screening.

[Bill Seipel]

That seems pretty darn cheap by today's standards, but all depends on what your market is. Considering an Apple 4K rental is $5.99 (everywhere), and an "early access" rental is $19.99. I guess in person cinema prices vary greatly by market with the independent screens. We are a big metro area, but even our non-profit classics still are 15$ for an adult non fan-club price (although apparently $3 of that is a "preservation fee"). For comparison AMC in our area is $16 for a "standard" screening.

As others have stated: This is why many theaters close. They think they're doing the community a favor by making the show "affordable". When in reality, the COST of exhibition is more!
We (the business entity that runs it, not my nonprofit) have an annual meeting in one week. And I am going to advocate strongly for increasing prices from $7, to $9 for an evening show. The average ticket price around here is around $10-15.

If my nonprofit were going to run this theater, I'd rather make the following changes:
- I would try to find a booker/agent which would allow me to run shows Fri Sat Sun... and thats it.
- I would only employ a projectionist (Hell, I could do it. I have before but don't have time)
- I would manage at least the accounting

[Leo Enticknap]

if $9 is what you need to break even now, I would suggest arguing for a hike to $10, especially if your last ticket price raise hasn't been for a few years. Many's the time I've been told that a consumer-facing business takes far less of a PR hit by raising their prices significantly and infrequently, rather than than slightly and frequently. If you go to a figure that is slightly higher than is just needed to survive, and believe that your customers will stomach it, then (a) you won't have to do it again for a while, and (b) you might have the chance to build up some reserves for emergencies, upgrades, etc.

Of all the nonprofit theaters that I've worked at and served as a service tech, it looks to me that the most successful are those that involve a carefully thought out combination of professional and volunteer labor.

[Bill Seipel]

if $9 is what you need to break even now, I would suggest arguing for a hike to $10, especially if your last ticket price raise hasn't been for a few years. Many's the time I've been told that a consumer-facing business takes far less of a PR hit by raising their prices significantly and infrequently, rather than than slightly and frequently. If you go to a figure that is slightly higher than is just needed to survive, and believe that your customers will stomach it, then (a) you won't have to do it again for a while, and (b) you might have the chance to build up some reserves for emergencies, upgrades, etc.

Of all the nonprofit theaters that I've worked at and served as a service tech, it looks to me that the most successful are those that involve a carefully thought out combination of professional and volunteer labor.

Shareholders didn't want to raise the ticket price. SMH

We just shelled out almost $10k for Directors insurance, another $3k for building insurance, and another $2k for RTS software licensing (annual). January is just MURDERING us.

I thought the theater would have another year.

I have real doubts about that estimate now.