As most of you know, the city has been dragooned into trying to find some way to make the Avalon Theatre pull in some kind of revenue to match the cost of its upkeep.
While I understand the attachment many have to these buildings, their functionality was grounded in past entertainment pursuits so they always present a problem.
The City of Grand Junction, as is their usual tact, have tried to fold the Avalon into layers of other departments so the resources might be shared intermittently and hide the true cost by spreading labor and materials over the other departments.
But here's a couple of quotes from a recent Daily Sentinel story on the project and if something doesn't seem amiss about them and you are considering starting your own business, you should immediately rethink that position.
"The nonprofit Cinema at the Avalon last fall was forced to fold after not bringing in enough revenue with its daily showings of independent films. Now under city leadership, and thanks to the popular movies and other creative productions, the Avalon this year is showing a marginal profit in its first quarter, something that hasn’t happened in years, Wade said."
"Being run by the city has helped the theater save on personnel costs by being able to transfer employees from Two River’s Convention Center."
I have to agree that this type of business operation has been called "creative" in the past. But not generally in a positive way; if you honestly think transferring personnel costs to another department is making money... well, we all see the problem.
