Featured Exhibitor
Looe Film Society - Cinema by the Sea
During the summer months, many film societies and community cinemas close down and go into planning mode. However, for those lucky enough to live in a tourist spot, the doors stay open in the hopes of luring in holiday makers. In this article, David Tolcher of Looe Film Society tells us what it's like to stay open, as well as sharing some hints and tips for other similar groups.
To read other case studies from film societies and community cinemas, go to our featured exhibitor archive.
Summer time and the living is easy! Well perhaps for the film societies that take a summer break to plan their new programme of films or simply get out in the sun and go on holiday?
So spare a thought for those film societies located in holiday areas. Summer is often their busiest time of year, and provides a welcome chance to boost their finances with lots of guest ticket sales. Looe Film Society (founded in 2006) used to go into a brief hibernation during August, but now summer is the busiest time of year for our community cinema and allows us to balance our books.
The first two film shows this June have been full houses, so there’s already a happy smile on our Treasurer’s face.
We tinker with our programming to ensure that summer films have some kind of Cornish connection. So far we have screened Alice in Wonderland (as filmed at a nearby National Trust house) and the silent masterpiece Piccadilly (available from the BFI), with a musical accompaniment from a Cornish band Wurlitza.
Children’s films are also part of our programme during the summer. Our venue is a community hall attached to Looe Children's Centre, so it's easy to work with the staff at the Children's Centre to provide extra film shows especially for children during school holidays.
Participating in summer festivals and events is an excellent way to raise the profile of the film society in the town and attract people who’ve never come to a regular film show.
In all our promotional materials we use the name “Cinema by the Sea” – a more friendly and welcoming name to those unfamiliar with film societies. Attractive full colour leaflets are placed in Tourist Information Centres and holiday accommodation, colourful posters find their way onto notice boards and shop windows, adverts for our film shows appear in freebie tourist publications, events websites, local radio stations and newspapers.
We make it easy for visitors with online ticketing, accepting e-tickets on mobiles, a 24 hour telephone information line, clear directions to our venue and an up-to-date and attractive website.
All this promotion means that film bookings need to be classified as 'commercial', but it’s well worth it.
So is winter a quieter time for Looe Film Society? Well no. With the growth of Christmas and New Year breaks and uncertain Cornish weather, there’s plenty of people wanting to see films when they come to the South West. Of course, winter also provides a chance to finally plan that mid-summer film show on the beach that we’ve always dreamt of organising, but somehow never have time to do.
Some tips from the sunny Cornish seaside.
- To save time, consider using a free email scheduler to send out pre-prepared press releases, emails, even Tweets - www.lettermelater.com
- MailChimp provides a free, reliable service for sending out emailed newsletters and film reminders, taking care of thorny issues like: subscription forms, unsubscribing and avoiding SPAM filters. To see an example of the very snazzy LFS film reminder email that uses MailChimp contact us at info@looefilmsociety.org.uk and we’ll forward you our latest example.
- Survey Monkey (another free web based service with a primate related name) is a great way to get feedback from your members – as used by the BFFS in the Annual Survey.
- Thinking of going for charitable status? Go for it. Our experience in Looe is that the application process takes a bit of planning but is fairly painless, and once you’ve got it, that magic Registered Charity number opens the door to lots and lots of help in kind from many businesses and organisations.
- Don’t be afraid to seek grants from local councils. Money is very tight but offering matched-funding helps. Every local council has an arts budget – it takes some digging, but it’s well worth the effort.
- Use advertising to off-set the cost of printing your film programme brochure. Don’t forget to ask the printers or graphics designers to advertise!
- At the beginning of the season, do some face-to-face brochure distribution and sell memberships on the spot from a busy location. (Though do bear in mind the need for a trading licence unless you’re on private property.)
Many thanks to Steve Payne from Penwith Film Society for contributing some of these tips.
