News : Palace Theatre Celebrates 25 Years

Abby Cronk

Abby Cronk spoke with the local Vinton Kiwanis Club on Tuesday. She shared that she's been with the Vinton Palace Theatre for 20 years and told of her experiences during her time there. 

Cronk began as a projectionist in the days of films arriving on reels. She said that they would arrive in a 2 big cans with six or seven reels which had to be spliced together, put on a larger reel and then put on a "platter." Her job was to thread the projector and prepare the film for the showing. 

She explained that this was fun, sometimes things like the humidity could mess with the film, or the splices might be off a little bit. She said the worst event would be a cina-wrap, which is when the film would become entangled in the machine and reel. Then the movie showing would have to be stopped to untangle the film. She looked back fondly at those times and the fun that she had. 

Fortunately, the theatre has been able to purchase a digital projector. This expense was made possible through the fundraising efforts in the community. Now, Cronk said, all they have to do is push the button to start a movie. Her husband Charlie downloads the movies onto the hard drive and enter the "key" and that tells the computer how many days the movie can be shown at the theatre. 

She talked about the decline in movie attendance thanks to the changes in the digital world. When Netflix came along, declining attendance was the natural progression. The theatre went from nightly showings to just showing movies on the weekend. Then COVID hit and everything shut down. 

Unfortunately, she said, after COVID the audiences just didn't return, some due to the fear of being in crowds after the scare. She talked about how the streaming services have also taken a bite out of the attendance since you can almost immediately watch movies from home as soon as they are released. However, attendance at the weekend shows have had a great response and even more so with any children's movie. She said those bring in the largest crowds. 

The theatre has added the new concession stand. Funded by the community and with the help of some grants, she stressed again the awesomeness of our community. "Without the community and the volunteers, we would not be here at all," Cronk said.

The Palace Theatre celebrates its 25th year this year. In July, Abby will be taking over management of the business from Gerald and Marcy Horst. She's sure that with the great community support, the Palace won't be going anywhere. She shared that having a theatre in Vinton with a population of only 5,000, and to have had it running continuously, is a very rare thing. She talked about how having ACT I in the community, with live performances, combined with the theater, has been incredible. Vinton has had both of these for the last 25 years, and she is sure that it will continue.

This weekend the Palace will be showing "Hamnet" and the plan is to have "Hoppers" on the schedule for the following weekend. She explained that any movie that they get on the opening weekend has to run two weekends. She said that some of the studios push for a three-week commitment so that books the theatre for quite some time. Independent movies are a different animal. A recent independent film was one that they had never heard of and the terms were great for the theatre. Often they have to pay a "guarentee" to get the film from a studio plus a percentage of the ticket sales. With this film there was not guarentee and it was a simple 50/50 split with the ability to show it as often as they'd like. Another restriction with studios is that they won't allow "stacking" of movies, meaning they can't show two different movies on the same day. She said that the stipulations on even bringing old films to the big screen are tough.

She was asked what her favorite movie was, which was a tough one to answer, but she landed on "Shawshank Redemption" which she felt covered all of the items on the list for a great movie. 

Cronk encouraged moms to sneak off alone, take a night off alone for an hour or so and just relax at a show. Maybe create a family movie night once a month where the phones stay home and everyone enjoys some popcorn and the show!

She said that the theatre also offers private showings if you'd like to rent out the Palace.

If you'd like to volunteer it only requires an hour of your time before the showing, and the pay is a free small popcorn and pop or water, and then a free show. 

Show times are: 

Friday and Saturday at 2 and 7:00 p.m.

Sunday 7:00 p.m.

Admission is only $5 and $8 for a balcony seat.

Here is a link to the Palace website be sure to sign up for their text club at 844-947-6017.