The Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons

Since nobody else has commented on the elephant in the room, I'll start the conversation.
1. The cancellation of events all over the state should slow the spread of the virus.
2. With only 3 confirmed cases in the entire state (all in Cuyahoga County and all resulting from out of state contact) the chance of any infection from a specific event, say one on March 21, is vanishingly small.
3. One of the best movies shown at the CWRU Marathon was 12 monkeys. You know the plot.
4. I plan on going although the other guy I bought a ticket for is wavering.

Comments?

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Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought. - Walt Kelly

I plan to make the trek down from Rockford, Ohio, about 2 1/2 hours. My buddy from Toledo is still planning to come as well.

I ain't afraid of no bug!

My wife is lobbying furiously that I and my daughter not attend this year. I intend to wait till the last minute before deciding, but I'm not blindly promising to show up. I'm local, by the way.

Part of me wants someone to cancel SF37, so I don't have to be the one who decides

And the count of confirmed cases is up to 4. Still pretty small in my judgement.

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Buckaroo Banzai: Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

The Ohio Governor says he’s recommending people to not attend indoor concerts or anything where a large group of people are gathering. Our 4th confirmed case has no history of travel outside the US.

According to the Columbus Public Health Commissioner, there are two people in Franklin Co. currently being tested for the virus.

_________________
Buckaroo Banzai: Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

I asked my wife "where else can you find an audience of 200 people who have all seen 12 Monkeys?" She had to go look it up.

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Buckaroo Banzai: Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

If the event isn't canceled? I'm still planning on attending with my daughter.

If the event is canceled? I will assume that it was done based on the best advice available, and I'll be bummed.

I have to say, I'm not too optimistic about the possibility of a marathon this year at this point.

For one thing, back when this started getting serious around 6-8 weeks ago, I mentioned to a couple of my marathon friends that the usual marathon crowd had a number of "high-risk" individuals in it.

But now that we're looking at the "when and how to reopen" phase of the situation, some things are becoming pretty apparent.

-Some percentage of people will simply choose to avoid movie theaters for the rest of the year and possibly longer. The reasons are obvious. I say "some percentage" because whether it's what you'd consider large or small, there's no doubt that it's a number greater than zero.

-When theaters do reopen, it seems pretty clear that they will be operating at a reduced capacity. Whether it's 50% or 25 or 33 or whatever, it seems that full houses will not be allowed. And they almost certainly won't be allowed until we have an actual vaccine at some point hopefully next year. (Super late this year if we're lucky.)

Now I'm no marathon insider, but I've been under the impression that these marathons require a mostly full house to not lose money. So if anywhere near a required breakeven number isn't even allowed, is it even financially possible to put on a marathon?

Now one possible bit of good news is that I have heard that some distributors were thinking about letting theaters play some old movies for free when they reopen, to try to attract customers back. But I don't know if the marathon could benefit from that, because it may be for a very limited selection of titles or for a very limited time only.



But I don't know. Like I said, I've got no real info, I'm just trying to figure things out and adapt and adjust like everyone else these days. But I'm not feeling a lot of reason to be optimistic about the marathons right now, no matter how awesome they are. Anyone care to convince me otherwise?

(Though at the very least, hopefully they'll be able to return next year.)

Jumpin' Jupiter! An actual discussion thread on the message board?!?!? What is this, the paleolithic era?

But seriously (if that's even possible at this point), as cleazer so astutely deduces, these are extraordinarily challenging times for the Marathons. In over 30 years of putting on these shows, we've never encountered a situation like this, one that both changes daily and is resolutely foggy for the long term.

I've been doing a few live chats on Facebook over the last month, and will probably do another one this week to give what updates we can and discuss some Marathon history (aka The Fun Stuff amidst these ridiculous times.) To confirm at least one point that cleazer made, since we switched to a rental format with the Drexel, we're on the hook if one of the Marathons loses money. Or more specifically, I'M on the hook if it loses money. And as you might deduce, I'm usually not in a place to yank out $1000 or more to make up the difference. So it's a tenuous path to trod, albeit one that hasn't posed much of a problem. But that calculus will surely come into play when a final decision is made about making SF37 happen.

But don't lose hope! Until there's no other option, we remain steadfastly committed to launching SF37 this year. And there's still time to see how things develop. In the meantime, hang in there and we'll make the best of it.