The Senator Theatre, a historic single-screen, Art Deco movie theater located in Baltimore, MD, first opened its doors on October 5, 1939. The beautiful, old movie house now features a 40-foot curved screen and state of the art projection and sound systems. Recently, The Senator fell on hard times and was purchased by the City of Baltimore in July 2009. This year, it was taken over by James “Buzz” Cusack (who runs The Charles Theatre) and his daughter, Kathleen. The Cusacks are working on a huge renovation of the theatre, including uncovering original wood paneling, returning the theatre to its original colors, repairing the marquee, and possibly constructing a smaller theatre and two restaurants on-site in the future. But TheSenatorTheatre.com needs some renovating, too!
The Senator Theatre
Just this month (October 15 to be exact), The Senator re-opened for business, showing the action-thriller Red, starring Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, and Bruce Willis. Now that the movies are rolling again at The Senator, it’s time to take a look at their online presence. Currently, The Senator’s website doesn’t reflect its grandeur, show off its services or even provide customers with the most basic of ticket purchasing options. Some needed improvements include:
- “Show me the money!” (Online ticket purchasing)
This is essential. No one wants to wait in line at the theatre when they can purchase tickets from the comfort of their home computer or on their smart phone on the way to the theatre. Online ticketing is a basic service almost every theatre provides and The Senator should implement it as soon as possible. - “Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my!” (Or Twitter, and Facebook, and blogs!)
Social media provides the ideal way to communicate theatre re-opening events, upcoming movies, showtimes, ticket deals, movie reviews, and more. The Senator needs to harness the social power of Facebook and Twitter at the very least. Film fanatics love to dish it out. Kudos to having a blog section, but it should be updated more frequently. They have a lot to talk about and their blog is the perfect place. - “It’s showtime!” (Showcase movie trailers)
Attract customers to the theatre by showing trailers of the featured films. Provide them the trailer, remind them they’ll be seeing this awesome film on a FORTY FOOT SCREEN, offer them the aforementioned online ticketing, and voila, more customers. - “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” (Dining and parking info)
When people go out to the movies, they like to make an evening of it. What’s a more quintessential date than dinner and a movie? But what if you just heard about this fantastic, single-screen movie house in Baltimore, but you have no idea what else is nearby? By providing information about nearby restaurants, bars, and coffee shops, The Senator would provide a great service to its customers. This is also an excellent way to build some links – if nearby shops and restaurants notice the online promotion, they’re likely to reciprocate. The Senator should also give its customers information about parking in the area – this is a courtesy so that no one is surprised upon arriving. - “What a dump.” Not anymore! (Video tour)
Now that the Cusacks are beautifying the theatre once again, why not post video tours of the new digs? This will give visitors incentives to come back to the site frequently to see updates and it will inspire people to want to see the renovations in person.
One last thing to note – currently The Senator has two websites (senator.com and thesenatortheatre.com). Ideally, they’d update and improve one website and redirect the “old” site to the “new” site.
These are exciting times for The Senator – the theatre is well on its way to being a landmark once again. I’d love to see their website reflect the resurgence of the single-screen movie house. Good luck to The Senator Theatre – “to infinity and beyond!”
Mentioned in this post:
- “Show me the money!” – Jerry Maguire (1996)
- “Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my!” – The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- “It’s showtime!” – All That Jazz (1979)
- “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” – Auntie Mame (1958)
- “What a dump” – Beyond the Forest (1949)
- “To infinity and beyond!” – Toy Story (1995)
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