Blue Springs 8 Miller Theatre is #BlueSpringsStrong

All local businesses have been struggling due to the pandemic, and business owners are getting creative to bring in customers. But what if the main product is unavailable?

Photo by Jaime Russell, Anthem Photography

“It’s not really in our hands,” said Brett Miller, owner ofMiller Theatres in Blue Springs, a local, and family-owned movie theater. “Our business is in the hands of Hollywood right now, and if they don’t release new movies, we don’t get customers.”

Hollywood has continually pushed back release dates on major movies for the last several months, which has left Miller Theatres without their main product to sell.

“It’s different in our industry than in a restaurant business. People still have to eat, but here, if they aren’t releasing movies, then people aren’t going to come to the movie theater,” he said.

But that hasn’t stopped Brett and his family from getting creative to bring in customers while trying to wait out the pandemic.

They began by introducing “Curbside Concessions” during the shut-down when everyone was staying home.

“Curbside Concessions was honestly something I had planned to do anyway but COVID just expedited that process,” Miller said. “People were coming in and buying our famous popcorn – because our popcorn is the best – and then going home. So when COVID hit, and people had to watch movies at home, we wanted to be able to provide them with a movie-like experience.  It’s an extra service that gets the community engaged and buying local.”

Photo by Jaime Russell, Anthem Photography

As things began to open up, Miller Theatres started playing older movies and reducing ticket prices just to keep customers coming in.Additionally, they have done well with hosting private rentals and special events in their space.

“Our customers have been great throughout all this,” Miller said.  “Everyone seems to really appreciate the extra precautions we’ve taken – stickers for social distancing, roped off sections, extra sanitization, etc. People know we keep our theaters extra clean to begin with. Our customers trust us to be clean when we aren’t in a pandemic, so under these circumstances, we are going to be top notch.”

And while we still don’t know how long it will be before life returns to normal for movie-goers, Miller and family are just hopingHollywood begins to see that people are craving new movies during this time.

“No one knows what to expect,” he said. “We don’t know how long it will take to recover. If we had new movies to show, we are confident people would come. When the movie Tenant opened in theaters a few weeks ago, it did really well. We’re hoping Hollywood sees that and begins to release more movies in theaters.”

“In the meantime, we’re just trying to keep people employed and doing the best we can,” Miller said.

Thank you to the City of Blue Springs, The Examiner, Community Services League Blue Springs, and Downtown Alive for supporting our local small businesses. Together, we are #BlueSpringsStrong!

Photos by Jaime Russell, Anthem Photography