After a tough year, Sudbury Indie Cinema enjoys surge in attendance, revenue

Sudbury's Indie Cinema survives challenging year It’s been a whirlwind for Sudbury’s indie cinema, which faced various financial challenges and a potential re-location in the past year.

Sudbury’s Indie Cinema is ending 2024 with increased revenue -- and optimism for 2025.

Just a year ago, it was struggling to make ends meet.

"Things were looking quite dire for the cinema," said former executive director and current management consultant Beth Mairs.

"There was an accumulated shortfall between what we were taking in and what we had to put out, in terms of, operating costs."

Mairs said they were underfunded by the municipality compared to other arts organizations.

"We were also paying extremely high rent, like, higher than the market," she added.

Another hurdle came in April when the building went up for sale. The new owner had a different vision for the space, and the Indie began looking for a new home.

"It was sort of like the second wave in a tsunami where, you know, you've survived the first one and you're just starting to get on your feet. And this other tidal wave comes in," Mairs said.

By the time the group found a new location, the building owner had a change of heart.

"He changed his position and he gave us additional time,” she said.

Now, the Indie has extended its lease on MacKenzie Street for another two years. The whole experience forced them to take a new approach.

“If I look back at it, the crisis that we had mobilized us to get a lot more serious about hitting certain targets and making changes at the cinema so that we could get the houses fuller," Mairs said.

One big change was new programming by general manager Miranda MacLeod. Mairs said they always did well with art house-style films, but that left out a broader audience.

"It was bringing in a niche crowd of people in Sudbury looking for that," she said.

"But there's tons of people that love nostalgic films, things that bring them back to their childhood -- things that they can show their children."

Added fun elements

MacLeod began implementing event-style themed nights with cult and classic films.

"Just some different types of events that add fun elements to the screening," MacLeod said.

"There's other things that come along with them, like the cereal cartoon parties where it's three hours of retro cartoons and then, over 50 varieties of cereal and they get to sit and eat endless bowls of cereal."

MacLeod said the themed nights have been tremendously successful, and tickets have sold out.

The theatre has even run out of popcorn.

"We had quite the turnaround," Mairs said.

"Our concession sales went up 70 per cent over the previous year … Our ticket sales went up 40 per cent, our rentals doubled."

Terek Tolsma, who has a variety of roles at the Indie, including the concession stand, said a lot more people are coming through the doors.

"I've seen a massive influx of people within the last few weeks," Tolsma said.

“A lot of people come in to see those Oscar nominees and everything like that from the start of December, where we had a … handful of people coming in every day to now, boatloads of people coming in. So it’s really nice to see."

There are five festivals slated for 2025. MacLeod said she has plans to make the genre film screenings bigger and better with time.