Five years ago 24 delegates from twelve theaters came together in Salt Lake City to work together to build a stronger art house theater community. Since then, the Art House Convergence has grown to 300 like-minded individuals, representing over 100 theaters nationwide, who meet annually to share best practices and forge bonds to make art house theaters strong, vibrant, “community-supported and mission-based” centers.
This is the third time that John and I have attended the Art House Convergence. This year was the most inspiring and informational trip that we have made. Over the course of four days we met other theater operators with organizations that range in size from single-screen storefronts to cutting-edge, big city facilities. We talked with independent distributors and filmmakers. We met with innovative programmers, customer service experts, education specialists, and equipment representatives.
The Philadelphia area was very strongly represented with not only the Ambler and County Theaters present, but also the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, Cinema 16:9 (Lansdowne), ArtsQuest (Bethlehem), The Colonial Theatre (Phoenixville), and The Civic Theatre of Allentown. We were excited to make stronger friendships with our other local film family and look forward to working together to continue to bring the best films and events to the Greater Philadelphia region.
John Toner addressing the audience of the Digital Cinema Panel. Photo by Chuck Foxen.
The biggest topic of conversation was the Digital Cinema Initiative that needs to be addressed by all of our organizations. Because of the incredible support that we have received from all of our members and fans, we arrived ahead of the rest of the pack in terms of our Digital knowledge and were able to share information and lead the discussion about the digital conversion. John was a panelist in one session on discussing digital conversion and was thanked by many other conference attendees for being a clear voice in the face of this difficult and tumultuous challenge. We learned a great deal from our colleagues and feel confident that we will not only weather this storm, but use it to our advantage to continue to bring you the best films with the best possible presentation.
The other highlights of the trip included Key Note addresses by Tim League, Founder and CEO of Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, and Ted Hope, Producer/Partner/Founder of Double Hope Films. Both of these esteemed speakers reminded us about our vital role to our communities and challenged us to be better citizens and exhibitors.
Both John and I came away with a number of new tools and ideas which we plan to put into practice in the very near future. We are especially looking forward to working closer with members of the community, local film experts, and colleagues in other theaters to constantly improve our mission of bringing you the best theatrical experience possible.
To learn more about the Art House Convergence, you can explore their website, Facebook page, or follow them on twitter. You can also look back through the #AHC12 hashtag posts on twitter to see all of the discussions that were held at the convergence itself.
