Office to rent in Lewes

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Cinema at Uckfield

On 31 Jul 2013 at 4:49pm Priory Ghost wrote:

I was going to take my offspring to the cinema at Uckfield. Is it wise to book ahead or just turn up???? ta

On 31 Jul 2013 at 5:00pm belladonna wrote:

I always book ahead - you can choose your seats and don't have to queue. Hopefully by next year we will have our own cinema

On 31 Jul 2013 at 7:15pm Fairmeadow wrote:

I agree with belladonna

On 1 Aug 2013 at 12:43pm Lewes Cinema wrote:

You do already - in fact Lewes Cinema based at Lewes Little Theatre (Lancaster St, BN7 2PX) is the only cinema screening in all 12 months of the year.
Since it moved into its new venue last Oct (during its first 10 months it has:
* Screened 70 different feature films
* Had 118 separate performances
It has bookable seating online (always has had) projects digitially (as does Uckfield) and has Dolby Digital sound (as does Uckfield) and has an air conditioned balcony.
But it is a little cheaper than Uckfield at �7 for adults and �5 for kids.
www.facebook.com/lewescinema
www.lewescinema.co.uk

On 1 Aug 2013 at 11:27pm Belladonna wrote:

I mean a proper cinema that shows a variety of films every day, not showings every other weekend of releases a couple of months behind everywhere else. Being open 78 evenings a year maximum (3 x 26 wks) doesn't really compare to 364 days and doesn't cater well for significant proportions of the population (for example shift and weekend workers) .

On 2 Aug 2013 at 12:55am Lewes Cinema wrote:

Well we are very 'proper' but not full-time as you point out. But there IS a reason why the two full time cinemas in Lewes closed. Can you guess what it is??
Of course I know what you mean by 'proper' - you mean full-time.
Lewes has a population of approx 16000 and by any calculation or benchmark you care to use that is too small a population to sustain a full-time cinema. I totally understand your desire for full-time cinema, and why not bowling alleys, casino's, nightclubs as well? Unfortunately the only way you will get most of these is to move to bigger town.
Shift and weekend workers - yes it's certainly possible that a small proportion of the potential audience cannot attend due to working patterns but I doubt very much that any cinema will be able to screen films viably at 10am or whatever time it is you think would enable shift workers to go to the cinema.
While nobody doubts that it would be 'nice' to have 365 days a year of cinema screening as many films as possible over as many hours as possible I can tell you (and I have over 25 years in the cinema business) that unfortunately it would not be viable. Why do you think that Film at all saints closes during August? Because there is not enough business to sustain it I would have thought. We choose to screen during limited days during the Summer (at a loss if necessary) to maintain a year-round service but I really can't blame others for not doing so.
Cinema is a great business to run in terms of the personal rewards but it is fiendishly difficult to maintain even a part-time screen financially let alone a full-time multi screen. But I feel we have been down this path before..
For independent cinema to succeed in Lewes (and in fact anywhere) it really has to be so, so carefully managed - you really can't imagine just how fine the margins are.
As you know we screened for over 10 years at All Saints and have now moved to a new venue. The good news is that our average admission figures are up compared to All Saints but even so, admissions have taken a customary nose-dive from May onwards. Nothing unusual in that, it happens every year with even the likes of The Duke of York's suffering from poor admissions during the Spring/Summer months.
Seriously, when some screenings at WEEKENDS during this time of year attract less than 10 people how on earth do you think a 365 day a year operation would be sustained?
I realise that you will not be aware of the economics or practicalities of independent cinema operation, and why should you? But that is just the trap that the council fell into and that others will follow I'm afraid.

On 2 Aug 2013 at 3:05am Insomniac wrote:

We'll see when the new cinema opens, won't we?

On 2 Aug 2013 at 1:02pm Lewes Cinema wrote:

Well the facts and the evidence are already there if anybody cares to look. All Saints has reportedly struggled to gain anything like the expected/predicted numbers. We have faired relatively well as we have over a quarter century of practical cinema experience and can more easily mitigate the seasonal trends - which are indeed quite extreme in Lewes.
The Harvey's Depot plan may or may not happen as proposed but I would suggest that there are a fairly good number of reasons why the likes of City Screen (who operate Picturehouse Cinemas inc Duke of Yorks) and companies like ourselves have all declined to take-on the Pinwell Road site despite having been approached in the past.
There is a way that the Depot cinema could happen, and that is if somebody is prepared to kiss goodbye to several million pounds and not expect a return. But from any conventional cinema standpoint it's a non starter in its present form.
Of course that's just our view - others will disagree. But I think you will find that the only ones expecting such a complex to be viable are those who do not have a commercial cinema background.
Don't shoot us as the messenger - we are just giving a practical view on the project. There is no doubt that many (if not most) people would love to have a four screen complex in the town, but wanting it does not necessarily make it so.
If the scheme goes ahead it will have to attract more than 50% of its audience from outside of Lewes and if it is successful in that regard then we could well benefit from the increased awareness of cinema in the town anyway.
Try to understand where we are coming from - the new cinema may happen, but if it does then it will be late 2014 at the earliest and more likely 2015. In the meantime it is not particularly helpful for people to comment that there is no cinema in the town when there are currently 2 at All Saints and at Little Theatre - very frustrating.