Buffalo Grove Theater raising funds to avoid closure

Another local movie theater may well fall victim to what could be dubbed the digital disease unless a fundraiser just getting started provides the cure.

The Buffalo Grove Theater, located at 120 McHenry Road in Buffalo Grove’s Town Center shopping mall, has until April to install digital projection equipment.

If it fails to do, it could join the ranks of movie theaters like the one in Arlington Heights that have closed their doors.

“All theaters have to be digital now, because they are going to be discontinuing doing film,” said Debbie Benjamin, theater owner. “Little by little, studios will be starting to discontinue film, so they say by the end of 2013 there will be no more film. So that if you have not converted to film, then you’re out of business, basically.”

The theater is hoping to avoid that by holding a fundraiser, Benjamin said.

She said the fundraiser, the details of which can be found on its website, bgtheater.com, will involve donors purchasing movie and concession vouchers they can redeem after the transformation.

The theater must raise $300,000 to convert all five auditoriums. The vouchers are transferable and can be used as gifts. The money needs to be received by March so the digital projectors can be installed by April.

More information is available at the website, by calling (847) 215-1221, or by email at movies@bgtheater.com

Benjamin said a lot of the smaller independent theaters are running fundraisers to survive, such as the Catlow in Barrington.

“But they have only one screen. and I have five, so I think they needed $100,000,” she said.

She said the theater draws well, adding that it switched more than two years ago to showing first-run films but still managed to keep prices affordable. The top ticket is $7.