Holiday Cinemas Stadium 10

lostmemory on February 20, 2007 at 12:25 pm

This is a 7/9/2005 article about the opening of this theater.

“Wallingford, Conn., movie theater will open.

Source: New Haven Register
Byline: Luther Turmelle

Jul. 9—WALLINGFORD — Showtime is less than a week away for Wallingford’s first movie theater in more than a decade, but the theater’s owners are confident their venue will do what some in the entertainment industry call “boffo box office.”

Volume — movie patrons and lots of them — is the key to the business plan that partners Robert LaFlamme and Vinny Gianetto have already made work at 10-screen theaters in Waterbury and Meriden.

On Friday they’ll put their formula to the test in their new 1,800-seat, 10-screen venue in Wallingford, a town that hasn’t had its own movie theater since the early 1990s.

“We’re here for the long haul,” Gianetto said Friday as he watched workers put art deco finishing touches on a multimillion-dollar conversion of what used to be an empty retail space in Wallingford Plaza.

The town’s past track record might suggest otherwise.

Wallingford has seen a pair of movie theaters fail in the past 25 years — the old Center Cinema at 185 Center St. and another venue that was located in the shopping plaza where Staples now is located on North Colony Road. Ironically, the North Colony Road location -which was closed in the early 1990s — was owned by LaFlamme and his family-run chain, though they sold the theater to a large chain that ended up shutting it down.

But despite the town’s track record, the partners jumped at the opportunity to bring Holiday Cinemas to Wallingford.

“This theater didn’t end up here by accident,” Gianetto said. “We looked carefully at the demographics and liked what we saw. We think we’ll draw heavily from Wallingford and Cheshire and maybe some people from North Haven and Hamden.”

The small chain’s business plan relies heavily on drawing big crowds who purchase lots of food at the concession stands.

“We make the bulk of our money on concessions, not tickets,” LaFlamme said.

To draw crowds, Holiday Cinemas uses a potent combination: An eclectic mix of films and reclining high-backed seats, along with below-market ticket prices and snacks.

LaFlamme said about 70 percent of the movies that the theaters show at any one time will be mainstream Hollywood fare. But in an effort to differentiate their theaters from larger rivals like Massachusetts-based Showcase Cinemas, the partners also book so-called “art house” motion pictures.

That’s why when the Wallingford location of Holiday Cinemas opens next week, it will show the blockbuster “The Fantastic Four” alongside a documentary about penguins that LaFlamme predicts audiences will fall in love with.

“We think that our prices are low enough that people might be willing to take a chance on something they’ve never heard of before,” said LaFlamme, who handles the booking of the movies.

But the partners must choose carefully. Holiday Cinemas counts on gross receipts from the blockbusters to subsidize the smaller crowds attracted by the lesser-known art films, said Gary Czlapinski, district manager for the chain.

Though the stakes are high for Gianetto and LaFlamme, their business plan also has room for a little fun — the new theater will have an animatronic Elvis dressed in a gold jumpsuit near the ticket counter".

Seats-1800 Function-Movies First Run

rivest266 on October 27, 2010 at 10:40 pm

tiny grand opening announcement on July 14th, 2004 at View link