Russell Allen didn’t waste any time following his purchase Monday of Ski-Hi 6 movie theater from its longtime owner Fran Eigenberg. There were transitions to make, from the web domain and showtimes to what’s served at the snack bar, and the CEO of Allen Theaters was on site in Alamosa to oversee it all.
It’s been a “quest” of his to own the San Luis Valley’s only multi-screen movie theater and one he’s been on since before COVID brought a reckoning to the ownership of local movie theaters.
The Ski-Hi is closed through this week’s transition and will re-open on Friday.
With the Ski-Hi 6 acquisition, the New Mexico-based Allen Theaters is now in 14 markets with 17 locations and a total of 118 movie screens. “And according to the National Association of Theater Owners, that puts us probably, well we were the 43rd largest circuit in the country at 112, so I probably stepped up a couple of spaces,” Allen said.
The biggest adjustment Valley moviegoers will have to get used to are a different set of movie times that Allen said are at more convenient times, and the fact all theaters will have reserved seating.
“The big thing is we are going to reserve-seating on all showings. So all tickets will be purchased in the snack bar, or we’ll have a kiosk, but no longer use the box office.
“So you need to plan ahead a little bit. It’s a little better for that and I think it’s going to be different, but we’re a hundred percent reserved seating throughout our entire circuit and customers quite like it. It’s always a challenge for the first month, but our intentions are for the future.”
Those intentions, he said, include the installation of power recliners in the Ski-Hi 6 as early as the summer of 2025.
Here’s more of Alamosa Citizen’s interview with Russell Allen, CEO of Allen Theaters. Allen himself was born and raised in Farmington, where the business was started by his great grandfather in 1912.
Alamosa Citizen: Is Allen Theaters bucking a trend in terms of acquisitions, adding screens?
Russell Allen: It is our intention. So there are literally hundreds of theaters around the country that are owned by people in the same rough age group as the previous owner of this theater. And it’s coming to a time where decisions are being made as to ‘How are we going to do this? Are there family members involved? If not, then we’re going to sell because this is a business that everybody loves to be in.’ Every community loves to have a movie theater, and our history is, we’ve been doing this for 112 years. I’m the fourth generation and it’s our intention and our goal to continue to have the smaller communities be able to operate.
AC: What makes this particular market of the Valley attractive to you?
Russell Allen: Mostly because it’s a closed market. Another word for monopoly. There’s no other theaters, with the exception of the drive-in over in Monte Vista, and we’ve known the market forever. Alamosa over the years has grown remarkably. And I think Fran was, she was ahead of her time with the six-screen theater over the almost 30 years that it’s been here. She’s kept it in remarkably good condition. It is a time capsule. Like I said earlier, the most important thing it needs is seats. And that is on the next thing as soon as we can get through the holiday season and get things going. And so it’s just a neat little market.
AC: Where do you operate out of?
Russell Allen: We do operations out of Las Cruces, New Mexico and accounting out of Farmington. I was born and raised in Farmington. That’s where the business was started by my great grandfather in 1912. And so yeah, this is the perfect market. We have several markets just this size. We’re very comfortable with this market. We are a large enough company that we can make the improvements that need to be made. We can make the repairs that have to be made, and our goal is to give the customer the most up-to-date experience that they can get anywhere else.
AC: How do you price or what will we see on ticket prices? What’s your expectation or what should we anticipate?
Russell Allen: My expectation is the pricing will be very similar. I believe our snack bar pricing will probably be a little bit less. We do, we will have only two tickets set up. We’ll have an adult and then child and seniors, so seniors will move down to the child’s pricing. We do generally a 50-cent increase on Friday and Saturday nights, and we are plus-tax on top of the ticket pricing and the snack park pricing. So there will be some different kind of pricing going forward, but it’s going to be very comparable to what it’s been. All of our pricing’s being determined by our costs, and we try to keep it down as low as we possibly can because we believe in volume and we want people to come enjoy the movie.
AC: Last question, and we really appreciate your time. Was the acquisition solely for this theater, and the reason we asked that is she has some downtown theater property and there’s questions of where you purchased it as well?
Russell Allen: No, no. Just the operating theater. There is a non-compete, obviously, but single-screen theaters are, they’re dinosaurs. You can’t make any money with it because people want selection. And so our goal is to always, we’re going to churn out the movies as fast as we can. Showtimes will be dramatically different. You’re going to need to go to our website to see the showtimes. The standard 5, 8, 1:30, that’s done. It’s over with. You’re going to have to search for showtimes on our app and through our website because the showtimes will change every week depending on the running time of the movie. And so they’ll be staggered, staggered showtimes. And that’s going to be the biggest challenge for everybody here because historically they’ve just been all within that 5 to 5:30 to 8:30 and 1:30. We don’t do it that way. We try to do as efficient times for as many showings as we can and give a better selection to the customer to choose from.