First Year Bloopers and Fun!

Kavitha ReddyPalace

Just some FYI about our First Year!

(1)We were closed 4 out of our first 14 days because of bad weather. We had shortened days for several more.
(2)We were unofficially opened for the Thursday premiers of Fifty Shades of Grey and Kingsmen on 2/12.
(3) When we first started, we had pennies in our cash drawers because we had no idea what we would need, even though all of our prices end in 0 or 5. Now, we don’t keep pennies and occasionally have to scramble to find pennies to give back as change in rare instances.
(4) We expected to make a ton of mistakes our first year and would spend our second year fixing them. We surprised ourselves with how efficient the systems we put into place are. Two of our most common (and ridiculous) mistakes are forgetting to turn on the butter dispenser and leaving the lobby lights off.
(5)All of our current staff members are from our original hiring in December of 2014. We haven’t needed to hire any new staff. (However, our Director of Operations would like a little help and we are still looking for a Part Time Team Leader… application is on the job tab of our website)
(6)We sold over 92,000 movie tickets.
(7) We raised over $500 for the Humane Society and helped more than 10 animals find homes by hosting adopt-a-thons.
(8)We hosted more than 50 classes for field trips. Many of these field trips were the students’ first visit to a movie theater!
(9)We experienced a couple of major technical malfunctions that really tested our crisis management skills. During one of these difficulties, our staff jumped into action and provided a song and dance routine to entertain guests while they waited.
(10)We still haven’t figured out a good way to store our movie posters.
(11) We answered the question “Can you get in the tower?” more times than we can count. (No, we cannot climb into the tower. It’s just Styrofoam).
(12)We hosted several special events including: Ladies’ Night with the cast of the Arts Council production of Steel Magnolias (Then we handed you tissues and let you watch the movie), Avengers Dinner and a Double Feature with help from our friends at Domino’s Pizza (We even dressed up and posed for pictures with our guests), and Throwback Tuesdays with movies like Smokey and the Bandit and Dirty Dancing.
(13) We brought you a special dollar movie kid series during the summer!
(14) Our security camera footage helped the Athens Police Department catch a hit and run vehicle.
(15)We only really burned one batch of popcorn. There was smoke involved.
(16)We are absolutely the worst at predicting how many people will be at each show.
(17) Our first sell out of our largest auditorium happened on April 3. The 7:30 show of Furious 7.
(18) The most movies we have ever shown at one time was 9.
(19) We tried out almost every possible combination of showtimes we could. The only ones we haven’t tried: early morning shows on Sunday, and late night shows on Monday, Tuesday.
(20)We have found several ways to get our showtimes out into the public. Most recently, we started working with a company to produce a newsletter with the showtimes that is emailed directly to you! You can sign up on our website.