One movie theater hosted an outdoor film series to connect with residents before opening.
Alamo Drafthouse, a movie theater chain that serves food and drinks during feature presentations, is known for reaching out to local communities in addition showing films. Many times, they do this using outdoor movies. In Houston, the building site of a new theater is next to a park, and the cinema has said that they will be showing outdoor movies due to the convenient location. This is also one way the theater is reaching out to Denver customers, sponsoring an outdoor movie series before opening a new location.
According to the Denver Post, a new Alamo Drafthouse is launching Monday this week in Littleton, Colorado, outside of Denver. The first in the state, the movie theater will be featuring its many unique services besides offering food and drinks before and during the film to customers. The “Drafthouse” often hosts quote-a-longs for cult classics, and sing-a-longs for musicals. The theater also has music video sing-a-longs, with music from a particular year or decade that audience members can sing along with.
Before opening this week, the company sponsored last year’s outdoor Aspen Grove Free Family Film Series, an annual event, in hopes of better connecting with the town before opening a new theater. The series has been held since 2005, and included sing-a-long to “The Muppets” last year. The Drafthouse also hosted family activities before and after the films shown weekly during the summer months. The new theater is located in the Aspen Grove shopping center.
“We’re a chain but we want to reflect the local community,” Tom DeFrancia, creative manager of the Denver location, said.
In a less family-friendly approach, the new theater has other ways of reflecting on the local community, including offering 32 different Colorado beers.
While this was tailored to Littleton residents, other theaters besides the Alamo Drafthouse can use outdoor movie screens to reach customers outside of the physical theater.