Thursday night shows coming to the Monarch in Sept.

By Jeremy Appel on September 1, 2018.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

Medicine Hat’s landmark Monarch Theatre will be start offering Thursday night screenings starting Sept. 13.

This makes the cinema open five days a week now — Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

For the inaugural Thursday, tickets will be $6, as they are every Sunday and Wednesday. After that they will be $8 the same price as Friday and Saturday.

Robin Anton, the Monarch’s manager, says this addition is due to popular demand, giving patrons an additional opportunity to see their weekly feature film.

“With attendance going up, it looks like there’s more of an interest in the theatre, that’s another reason why other than people specifically commenting that they would like it to be open more,” said Anton.

As the News previously reported, the theatre made $5,000 in profit on operations in 2017, coming after years of financial uncertainty.

Ticket sales came in at $66,400, which is a 23 per cent increase from 2016. At the same time, concession sales increased by 33 per cent and theatre rentals more than doubled.

Anton speculated the increased attendance is due to a variety of factors, including recent renovations, which were funded through donations from the Society of Friends of the Monarch Theatre.

He also touted the theatre’s film selection, which tends towards more independent films and documentaries that don’t get screened at the local Cineplex.

The Monarch is unable to screen movies while they play at the multiplex.

“That’s kind of why we go with a lot of smaller independent movies, but also because there’s nowhere else to see them,” Anton said, adding that they often screen movies that played at the Cineplex for only a brief period of time, such as The Book Club and The Post, which are often their biggest draws.

He said this could be due to the theatre’s loyal clientele, some of whom wait for a movie to be screened at the Monarch.

“It’s a hard thing to pin down why people make the decisions they make, but we’re just trying to do our best in gauging what’s working and trying to stick with that,” said Anton.

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