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PPeoples Bank Theater looks to continue success

MARIETTA — Following its first season of shows and midway through its first year of new operations, the Peoples Bank Theater is doing well and looking at continued success as the second season gets underway.

Hunt Brawley, the executive director of Peoples Bank Theater, believes the first year of the renovated and re-opened theater, originally named the Hippodrome and Colony theater, has gotten off to a good start for a variety reasons.

Due to the longer than expected length of time involved in the renovation and reconstruction work on the theater itself, “we had a lot of time to plan, a lot more time to plan than we had anticipated,” he said with a laugh, “because of the length of the restoration process.”

The longer period provided more time for Brawley and others involved with the project to look at similar theater programs around the region, what they do, the types of programs they offer and similar types of information, he said.

“We really tried to work with what we thought were kind of best practices from a regional group of theaters. When we were building our business plan, and actually for tax credit investment purposes, we had a very detailed operational plan as well. It all kind of fed in to what we were trying to do in terms of getting the theater together,” Brawley said.

From the beginning, the theater joined the League of Historic Theaters and also drew support and knowledge from that organization, which features a variety of similar theaters around the region, mostly single-screen historical facilities, he said.

As the restoration work was growing closer to completion, Brawley said theater staff met with people from some of those other theaters and started putting “real numbers to real acts” to work out available funding, the types of acts available and at what cost and what type of revenue might be projected.

“We worked to wrap that all into our business plan and fortunately create something that fits into the whole tax credit projection and is able to support the operation and tax credits down the road,” Brawley said. “We did have a very detailed operating plan from the start and several of the acts that we had appeared — even though we developed that over five years ago — there were several acts that appeared on that plan … that we had been thinking about for a long time,” he said.

When they looked at it originally, Brawley said the operational plan forecast about $860,000-$900,000 in gross income and expenses. The first half of the year has been close, just a little above that in both regards, and he is hoping to continue. Both income and expenses have both been greater than projected.

“Our nets were over expectation, but our costs were over expectation as well. We need to catch up in a few areas, but all in all, I think we’ve done very well,” Brawley said.

The first season, which began in January and ended in June, and the new season which started in July and runs through December, have been a combination of that plan developed in the past and work put into bringing it up to date, he said.

Brawley and other staffmembers and volunteers are also looking at a variety of ways to utilize the historic theater and make it a community resources.

For the last decade, the Colony Film Festival has been an event aimed at helping small, independent filmmakers with exposure and support. After years of being held in different locations, from Putnam Street Commons to the Mid-Ohio Valley Players Theatre, the film festival was held this year in the location for which it is named.

“That was particularly amazing,” Brawley said, especially since one local filmmaker used the theater as a location before it was restored and those watching that movie can see how much has now changed.

Peoples Bank Theater offered a variety of classic film showings during the summer and has plans for more. Film was always part of the plan at Peoples, which spent decades as a movie theater following its years as a live performance venue. Brawley said the response to the summer movie showings during the first season was not as strong as they hoped, but they are continuing with it and looking at ways to strengthen it.

Brawley said Peoples Bank Theater was also planned to act as a rental destination for other individuals, organizations and groups to hold performances, productions, concerts, corporate parties and even wedding receptions and other activities.

Interest in that has started to pick up and grow as more people become aware of the theater’s availability and facilities, Brawley said.

“As people saw other groups taking advantage of the stage, others followed suit,” he said.

Marketing Director Drew Tanner cited the Randy Travis and Tanya Tucker benefits as examples of others using the theater, along with work the staff has done with Marietta College to provide a venue for some of its groups and programs.

“It’s just a matter of calendar organization, which is a good problem to have,” Brawley said.

Brawley said the music programs, particularly country and rock, have been among the top draws so far in the first season and the start of the second, although the other concerts, comedy acts and other shows have also done well. The theater’s staff has studied what is done at similar types of venues in similar types of communities when booking acts as a way to see what might interest local patrons.

Tanner believes Peoples has the ability to grow. In terms of size and seating, it is one of the largest downtown theaters between Charleston and Columbus, he said. People have been known to travel two to three hours for shows during the first season and the theater needs to maintain that interest and get new people interested as well, he said.

“We’re seeing repeat customers from a pretty nice radius that have been really pleased with the quality of events we’ve had here, the variety of events we’ve had here. We’re seeing a lot of loyalty already amongst our patrons,” Tanner said.

“One of the things I’m looking at is how we can really reward and respond to those patrons that have been so supportive of us,” he said.

Tanner also wants to work with the businesses that can benefit when several hundred people come to downtown Marietta for a show and how that might positively impact them as well.

Tanner said Peoples will be looking at larger acts while also continuing to offer things that the Marietta community will like. He would like to add more children’s programming and work with area schools.

Brawley believes there is a “honeymoon phase” for new theaters that open, with a lot of initial interest and excitement, but it is up to the theater to sustain and grow that interest. In the long run, it’s up to the theater to develop the market within its sphere and getting people to come in regularly, he said.

“I still think we have a lot of room and are continuing to develop patrons,” Brawley said.

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