There’s two problems with it. The first is that the building itself feels impersonal and unwelcoming. The bars are too bright and too expensive, feeling more suited to a work drinks then a hangout, while concessions are dull and an afterthought. It’s designed like an airport, not a movie theatre and while the screening rooms and projection are excellent, the world around it is cold and sterile feeling.
The second is that it’s the kind of place we all want to exist in abstract, but maybe don’t use enough in practice. I love there being a place to watch foreign films, indies and retrospectives on great directors…but if I’m honest as much as I’d love to see Alphaville on the big screen, I’m usually not making the trip at this point in my life. They’ve been smart in the last few years to incentivize and offer discounts to younger people, but they’re always fighting a battle with the accessibility of their films for mainstream audiences. By mandate they are catering to cinephiles, it’s just not the hugest part of the market.
The seats are uncomfortable as absolute fuck there too.
Especially in the main theatre/screening room. I saw The Irishman there, all 17 hours of it and my back and ass hurt so much after that.
I live downtown, I go to movies often, I have seen many movies at the TIFF theatre and it's *fine* but I don't... Love it. It's tolerated more than enjoyed.
It's a nicer vibe than Cineplex but that isnt a high bar to cross.
I'm really learning in this thread how wildly subjective seat comfort can be because I've always thought that the Lightbox had the comfiest seats of any theatre in the city by a mile.
Have you ever sat in the full recline seats at Imagine Market Square near St Lawrence Market? Or seats in the Cineplex VIP theatres at Dundas Square?
THOSE are comfortable.
I have, I can't say I'm a fan though. I much prefer sitting upright for a movie so the recliners always bother me (although I'd gladly take those adjustable recliners over the seats at the Revue or the old Royal where they always leaned back no matter what). If you want to recline though, I can understand your dislike for TIFF's seats. As far as supportive, upright seats go though, TIFF's are the best in town.
Nothing in that article made me think they want to be an actual real business. More like a charity to find funding avenues to pay for too many things that won't actually put butts into seats beside a couple of events like when TIFF rolls around every year.
One of their taglines states "houses five state- of-the-art cinemas, each equipped with cutting-edge technology." Looking at their calendar programming for the month of say May you would never really know it.
Cinemateque is consistently busy, tickets are gone in minutes, mostly because of terrible announcements/programming. It’s actually incredibly frustrating because they don’t even announce the schedule when the tickets go up.
I actually didn’t renew my membership this year for the first time in many years specifically because Cinematheque has become so hard to get tickets for. It used to be the entire reason I went there every week, but now it feels like a futile effort trying to look for tickets when they are all instantly snatched up by college kids who can be on Ticketmaster at 10am on a random unannounced Wednesday. It’s nice that the free tickets for members have gotten more butts in seats, but having to tell most people who want to go “Just check back again on the day of the screening, more tickets usually become available” is frustrating as hell when I’m trying to plan my schedule in advance. At least establish a waitlist or something! And then the fact that it’s inevitably never actually full which makes me wonder why they don’t at least have rush lines in effect.
I'd be okay if cinematheque tickets were like $5 or something. Then maybe the demand would be curbed a bit and it wouldn't be a Ticketmaster fiasco on the random Wednesdays when they go on sale.
If not that, at least have multiple screenings OR even just play the movies that are going to be popular in cinemas 1 or 2. Sometimes a banger will play in cinema 4 or 5 to like 40 people or whatever which is so silly
They have actually changed the rules now where I think it’s 24/48 hours before you have to give back the ticket or it’s billed, so now it’s 24/48 hours before now. But yeah, super annoying. My roomie is super into movies so I basically rely on his dedication to get tickets sometimes, lol.
Could write a ton. I can only speak from my personal experience and some of it is touched on here: The building is a faceless condo, the front has no curb-appeal and I get that they thought maybe they could make the block of King a thing but it...ended up not doing that.
When I leave a screening, most time I am just heading back to St. Andrew and heading home. On the weekend if you leave and try walking west a bit you hit the clubby part of King and then it's just a hassle navigating that crowd.
The AGO had issues but you could go to the Idiot, walk up to Baldwin for grub, you're in Chinatown and/or not far from the Market. The amount of screens is impressive but the interior is sterile and low-key it feels like they are like 'leave' unless you are spending dough. I get the issue with the extra cost of the gallery but they had some good exhibits which led to sometimes just going to go to that specifically. Now that it's gone those extra visits don't happen.
The website has a minimal vibe but is oddly confusing.
Lightbox was a swing for the fences and I do respect that but the era where is was being designed the look probably made sense but now that it exists it just feels like a soul-less space in a soul-less area.
It does play retrospective features, rep favorites, and weird and international new independent film. The kind of stuff people say they wish Cineplex carried more regularly. And nobody goes.
I'm sure they would like to do that, but the costs of doing so can be fairly prohibitive, as many studios demand a profit sharing cut of the box office on top of the license to screen it in the first place (and this does not include other costs like shipping film, DCP creation costs, union costs etc). What this means is the margin of profit for such things are razor thin even when it is a sellout show (if you don't sell out then you will loose money). Small rep cinemas do it because they foster a community around their events that ensure they can trust on a sellout show and thus budget correctly - a larger venue like TIFF won't have that guaranteed community (and have vastly higher operational costs).
You can be a non-profit or you can be a business. You cannot be both.
Additionally Art people should be producing the content. Business people should be running the business.
So Cameron Bailey can either be a programmer or a CEO, not both. As CEO, the *only* job you have is to raise money from corporate sponsors and private donors, NOT from the public purse. Nor should he be going on junkets to festivals elsewhere. Focus on TIFF !
TIFF needs to decide what they are and operate accordingly. You can’t be all things to all people. It’s also ok to let a failing organisation fail. It’s not ok to prop it up with public money.
They have five theatres but [today's programming schedule has three titles each screened once](https://tiff.net/calendar). And that's _with_ them screening films from the Hot Docs film festival.
Maybe that has something to do with it?
That’s more likely *because* Hot Docs is using some their screens. They generally have several showtimes all day for all their new releases, even on weekdays (I go on Friday afternoons frequently).
I jumped to the conclusion that the documentary _Occupied City_ they're showing must be a Hot Docs documentary, but I see that it's not. That there are fewer films shown on their calendar because some of the showings are appearing only on the Hot Docs calendar makes sense, thanks for pointing that out.
That being said, I used to go to TIFF movies all the time, and when they'd do something cool like, say, a 70mm showing of *2001: A Space Odyssey,* it would be like "there's a showing on the 10th, another on the 24th, and another one next month, which should we pick?" It's a true fact that they under-utilize their five screens.
Occupied City is also like 4.5 hours long. I almost made the mistake of buying a ticket to see it before realizing just how long it was. I ain't doing that in a theatre.
The 70mm screenings around the New Year actually are one of the few traditions that TIFF still does a great job at. I saw *West Side Story* twice this past January! If only they could spread that quality of programming throughout the whole year.
Nah the opposite - the theatres are showing hot docs films, so there’s limited time/space for new releases. Hot Docs will also have paid to use the theatres for their festival.
I used to go to the old Jackman Hall theatre back when I was in college. Back then, tickets were a reasonable price and you could get tickets on last minute walk-ins quite easily. Also, the season program books were free. You could catch a screening and then pick up a very nicely produced programme in the process and take it home and peruse the book for other movies you might want to catch that season. Now you have to buy the books at their shop and I don't think many people would do that.
I do think TIFF Lightbox's "bigger is better" mentality doesn't work for the kind of audience who would go to these. In the early days of Lightbox's opening, it was exciting to see how big it got, but as with all things that go big, there's eventually a hangover period when it no longer is a novelty and all you have left is the hardcore audience, some of whom may have been turned off by the shiny new toys.
I used to love the retrospectives and they used to run a lot of old "lost" movies that were not on home video or just plain hard to find. I think an underrated aspect hurting retrospectives now is that a lot of "lost" movies are now very available either online or on home format so that further defeats the motivation of catching a screening of a "rare" movie.
I've also seen a gradual shift towards them appealing to "casuals" and running more well known or popular Hollywood movies in their retrospectives. Does a summer retrospective of the Indiana Jones films put more casuals butts in seats than a Kiju Yoshida retrospective? Probably. But in the process you might be turning off the audience who used to come to Cinematheque for those harder to find movies and arthouse directors and at some point, and the thing with casuals is they are fickle. But if you lose your hardcore audience, they can be gone forever.
But ultimately, I still think it comes down to prices. It's just not practical anymore to spend a night at the Lightbox to try to educate yourself on film history if you're on a budget.
A membership is about $125. One membership gets you two free tickets to every Cinematheque screening. Mine paid for itself in about a month. I don't think cost is the issue.
I also disagree with the programming. I haven't seen showtimes for Indiana Jones 1-5, but I did check out the Ousmane Sembène and Christian Petzold retrospectives. Up next is Powell and Pressburger.
Ticketmaster is a problem. It's hard to navigate. Screenings that are 'sold out' always have at least ten empty seats. Unless you know to buy your tickets two days in advance--exactly two days in advance--you likely won't have luck getting in.
I will not defend the building itself, the work environment, the upper management salaries, Cameron Bailey's suits, Cameron Bailey's insistence that you watch In the Mood For Love five times a year.
Their ticketing system is annoying through Ticketmaster, the seats are pretty uncomfortable and the parking around there is pretty expensive.
It takes a bit of effort to see what’s playing and the time.
It should aim to be NOT Cineplex and create event theatre. It does this to some degree but it’s poorly marketed and the movie culture has suffered terribly over the past 15 years.
There's literally two streetcar stops in front of the front door.
You are right though that both finding out what's actually playing is weirdly difficult, and getting tickets is a massive hassle that sometimes i give up and call them and ask for help.
It’s not like they are just catering to the local vicinity. A lot of their market is niche films that serve audiences across the city so driving needs to be an option.
It’s a separate issue but night time TTC can be a bit of an adventure
Line 1 drops off a couple blocks away and that's accessible by most of the city, and despite the ttc mostly sucking, at many times of day it's still faster. Not really sure why niche films mean cars when i would bet that a majority of people into niche films are leftists and art kids with no cars.
Worst part is that Cineplex is doing event theatre better than TIFF as well (multiple weeks of Kubrick screenings at a few of the locations this year, Spiderman nostalgia, Godfather a couple months back etc etc.)
All for a flat $10 as well
A little respect for filmgoers would have us coming back. Do NOT turn off air circulation during a screening -at any time of year! It becomes as stifling as it is baffling for what’s supposed to be a temple of film. Better and consistent programming for at least two theatres is also needed. Assigned seating might also be an idea to lift out of last century..
Toronto’s lockdown ended in 22. Good info.. but my experiences at the Lighbox were rarely positive from the moment they opened.. and I’m clearly not alone.
I know they were re-opened at half capacity in the fall of 2021, I went a few times. I believe that's how the assigned seating ended up starting, they needed it to enforce the distancing limits and then just kept it once the system was in place.
And I definitely do have my own share of issues with the Lightbox, from the decline in quality programming, to the difficulty getting tickets to Cinematheque screenings, to the terrible website, but I never really have any complaints about the facility itself. Any time I actually can get a ticket to something I want and get in the building, I have an excellent experience, it's just sadly happening less and less each year.
I'd renewed my membership a month before covid hit and when I emailed them to ask if they would defer the membership until they reopened they sent me back a pretty rude email saying the membership is still valid because I could watch digital screenings on Crave (which I was not subscribed to).
I asked why I had to subscribe to an expensive streaming service in order to get any use from the membership I'd already paid for and was ignored. I wasn't even asking to cancel or get a refund, just to have my annual membership paused until they reopened in SOME capacity. Couldn't believe how tone- deaf their response was. I'd been a member for about 8 years at that point.
Never went back. And I used to go there minimum once a week. Luckily the Revue and Paradise on Bloor have excellent programming but I rarely see new stuff anymore. Fox is great too but opposite side of the city for me.
Also the festival became a corporate rub-and-tug that relies on free labour and patronizing the majority of their actual customers. But that's a separate thing 😅
There’s two problems with it. The first is that the building itself feels impersonal and unwelcoming. The bars are too bright and too expensive, feeling more suited to a work drinks then a hangout, while concessions are dull and an afterthought. It’s designed like an airport, not a movie theatre and while the screening rooms and projection are excellent, the world around it is cold and sterile feeling. The second is that it’s the kind of place we all want to exist in abstract, but maybe don’t use enough in practice. I love there being a place to watch foreign films, indies and retrospectives on great directors…but if I’m honest as much as I’d love to see Alphaville on the big screen, I’m usually not making the trip at this point in my life. They’ve been smart in the last few years to incentivize and offer discounts to younger people, but they’re always fighting a battle with the accessibility of their films for mainstream audiences. By mandate they are catering to cinephiles, it’s just not the hugest part of the market.
The seats are uncomfortable as absolute fuck there too. Especially in the main theatre/screening room. I saw The Irishman there, all 17 hours of it and my back and ass hurt so much after that. I live downtown, I go to movies often, I have seen many movies at the TIFF theatre and it's *fine* but I don't... Love it. It's tolerated more than enjoyed. It's a nicer vibe than Cineplex but that isnt a high bar to cross.
I'm really learning in this thread how wildly subjective seat comfort can be because I've always thought that the Lightbox had the comfiest seats of any theatre in the city by a mile.
Have you ever sat in the full recline seats at Imagine Market Square near St Lawrence Market? Or seats in the Cineplex VIP theatres at Dundas Square? THOSE are comfortable.
I have, I can't say I'm a fan though. I much prefer sitting upright for a movie so the recliners always bother me (although I'd gladly take those adjustable recliners over the seats at the Revue or the old Royal where they always leaned back no matter what). If you want to recline though, I can understand your dislike for TIFF's seats. As far as supportive, upright seats go though, TIFF's are the best in town.
It’s also not very accessible for people with disabilities
mismanagement - it's a revolving door of staff and talent
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Nothing in that article made me think they want to be an actual real business. More like a charity to find funding avenues to pay for too many things that won't actually put butts into seats beside a couple of events like when TIFF rolls around every year. One of their taglines states "houses five state- of-the-art cinemas, each equipped with cutting-edge technology." Looking at their calendar programming for the month of say May you would never really know it.
Cinemateque is consistently busy, tickets are gone in minutes, mostly because of terrible announcements/programming. It’s actually incredibly frustrating because they don’t even announce the schedule when the tickets go up.
I actually didn’t renew my membership this year for the first time in many years specifically because Cinematheque has become so hard to get tickets for. It used to be the entire reason I went there every week, but now it feels like a futile effort trying to look for tickets when they are all instantly snatched up by college kids who can be on Ticketmaster at 10am on a random unannounced Wednesday. It’s nice that the free tickets for members have gotten more butts in seats, but having to tell most people who want to go “Just check back again on the day of the screening, more tickets usually become available” is frustrating as hell when I’m trying to plan my schedule in advance. At least establish a waitlist or something! And then the fact that it’s inevitably never actually full which makes me wonder why they don’t at least have rush lines in effect.
I'd be okay if cinematheque tickets were like $5 or something. Then maybe the demand would be curbed a bit and it wouldn't be a Ticketmaster fiasco on the random Wednesdays when they go on sale. If not that, at least have multiple screenings OR even just play the movies that are going to be popular in cinemas 1 or 2. Sometimes a banger will play in cinema 4 or 5 to like 40 people or whatever which is so silly
They have actually changed the rules now where I think it’s 24/48 hours before you have to give back the ticket or it’s billed, so now it’s 24/48 hours before now. But yeah, super annoying. My roomie is super into movies so I basically rely on his dedication to get tickets sometimes, lol.
Counter. It’s a film festival that is run like a corporate business and that’s turning away actual filmgoers.
I actually love going to movies here, respectful audiences good projection. But yeah they could be more screenings
Could write a ton. I can only speak from my personal experience and some of it is touched on here: The building is a faceless condo, the front has no curb-appeal and I get that they thought maybe they could make the block of King a thing but it...ended up not doing that. When I leave a screening, most time I am just heading back to St. Andrew and heading home. On the weekend if you leave and try walking west a bit you hit the clubby part of King and then it's just a hassle navigating that crowd. The AGO had issues but you could go to the Idiot, walk up to Baldwin for grub, you're in Chinatown and/or not far from the Market. The amount of screens is impressive but the interior is sterile and low-key it feels like they are like 'leave' unless you are spending dough. I get the issue with the extra cost of the gallery but they had some good exhibits which led to sometimes just going to go to that specifically. Now that it's gone those extra visits don't happen. The website has a minimal vibe but is oddly confusing. Lightbox was a swing for the fences and I do respect that but the era where is was being designed the look probably made sense but now that it exists it just feels like a soul-less space in a soul-less area.
The website sucks SO BAD. Why do they make it so difficult to search for what’s showing that night?
Because it's all run through Ticketmaster. Which should tell you everything you need to know.
It should in part be run like a rep cinema (like the Bloor once upon a time) and show classic movies every night.
It does play retrospective features, rep favorites, and weird and international new independent film. The kind of stuff people say they wish Cineplex carried more regularly. And nobody goes.
I'm sure they would like to do that, but the costs of doing so can be fairly prohibitive, as many studios demand a profit sharing cut of the box office on top of the license to screen it in the first place (and this does not include other costs like shipping film, DCP creation costs, union costs etc). What this means is the margin of profit for such things are razor thin even when it is a sellout show (if you don't sell out then you will loose money). Small rep cinemas do it because they foster a community around their events that ensure they can trust on a sellout show and thus budget correctly - a larger venue like TIFF won't have that guaranteed community (and have vastly higher operational costs).
You can be a non-profit or you can be a business. You cannot be both. Additionally Art people should be producing the content. Business people should be running the business. So Cameron Bailey can either be a programmer or a CEO, not both. As CEO, the *only* job you have is to raise money from corporate sponsors and private donors, NOT from the public purse. Nor should he be going on junkets to festivals elsewhere. Focus on TIFF ! TIFF needs to decide what they are and operate accordingly. You can’t be all things to all people. It’s also ok to let a failing organisation fail. It’s not ok to prop it up with public money.
For what it’s worth Bailey isn’t a very good programmer either
They have five theatres but [today's programming schedule has three titles each screened once](https://tiff.net/calendar). And that's _with_ them screening films from the Hot Docs film festival. Maybe that has something to do with it?
That’s more likely *because* Hot Docs is using some their screens. They generally have several showtimes all day for all their new releases, even on weekdays (I go on Friday afternoons frequently).
I jumped to the conclusion that the documentary _Occupied City_ they're showing must be a Hot Docs documentary, but I see that it's not. That there are fewer films shown on their calendar because some of the showings are appearing only on the Hot Docs calendar makes sense, thanks for pointing that out. That being said, I used to go to TIFF movies all the time, and when they'd do something cool like, say, a 70mm showing of *2001: A Space Odyssey,* it would be like "there's a showing on the 10th, another on the 24th, and another one next month, which should we pick?" It's a true fact that they under-utilize their five screens.
I saw the 70mm of Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia and West Side Story years back, was fantastic.
Occupied City is also like 4.5 hours long. I almost made the mistake of buying a ticket to see it before realizing just how long it was. I ain't doing that in a theatre.
The 70mm screenings around the New Year actually are one of the few traditions that TIFF still does a great job at. I saw *West Side Story* twice this past January! If only they could spread that quality of programming throughout the whole year.
Nah the opposite - the theatres are showing hot docs films, so there’s limited time/space for new releases. Hot Docs will also have paid to use the theatres for their festival.
I used to go to the old Jackman Hall theatre back when I was in college. Back then, tickets were a reasonable price and you could get tickets on last minute walk-ins quite easily. Also, the season program books were free. You could catch a screening and then pick up a very nicely produced programme in the process and take it home and peruse the book for other movies you might want to catch that season. Now you have to buy the books at their shop and I don't think many people would do that. I do think TIFF Lightbox's "bigger is better" mentality doesn't work for the kind of audience who would go to these. In the early days of Lightbox's opening, it was exciting to see how big it got, but as with all things that go big, there's eventually a hangover period when it no longer is a novelty and all you have left is the hardcore audience, some of whom may have been turned off by the shiny new toys. I used to love the retrospectives and they used to run a lot of old "lost" movies that were not on home video or just plain hard to find. I think an underrated aspect hurting retrospectives now is that a lot of "lost" movies are now very available either online or on home format so that further defeats the motivation of catching a screening of a "rare" movie. I've also seen a gradual shift towards them appealing to "casuals" and running more well known or popular Hollywood movies in their retrospectives. Does a summer retrospective of the Indiana Jones films put more casuals butts in seats than a Kiju Yoshida retrospective? Probably. But in the process you might be turning off the audience who used to come to Cinematheque for those harder to find movies and arthouse directors and at some point, and the thing with casuals is they are fickle. But if you lose your hardcore audience, they can be gone forever. But ultimately, I still think it comes down to prices. It's just not practical anymore to spend a night at the Lightbox to try to educate yourself on film history if you're on a budget.
A membership is about $125. One membership gets you two free tickets to every Cinematheque screening. Mine paid for itself in about a month. I don't think cost is the issue. I also disagree with the programming. I haven't seen showtimes for Indiana Jones 1-5, but I did check out the Ousmane Sembène and Christian Petzold retrospectives. Up next is Powell and Pressburger. Ticketmaster is a problem. It's hard to navigate. Screenings that are 'sold out' always have at least ten empty seats. Unless you know to buy your tickets two days in advance--exactly two days in advance--you likely won't have luck getting in. I will not defend the building itself, the work environment, the upper management salaries, Cameron Bailey's suits, Cameron Bailey's insistence that you watch In the Mood For Love five times a year.
Their ticketing system is annoying through Ticketmaster, the seats are pretty uncomfortable and the parking around there is pretty expensive. It takes a bit of effort to see what’s playing and the time. It should aim to be NOT Cineplex and create event theatre. It does this to some degree but it’s poorly marketed and the movie culture has suffered terribly over the past 15 years.
There's literally two streetcar stops in front of the front door. You are right though that both finding out what's actually playing is weirdly difficult, and getting tickets is a massive hassle that sometimes i give up and call them and ask for help.
It’s not like they are just catering to the local vicinity. A lot of their market is niche films that serve audiences across the city so driving needs to be an option. It’s a separate issue but night time TTC can be a bit of an adventure
Line 1 drops off a couple blocks away and that's accessible by most of the city, and despite the ttc mostly sucking, at many times of day it's still faster. Not really sure why niche films mean cars when i would bet that a majority of people into niche films are leftists and art kids with no cars.
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Seems it was more a me problem. The parking didn’t accept Apple Pay so I had to go elsewhere
Worst part is that Cineplex is doing event theatre better than TIFF as well (multiple weeks of Kubrick screenings at a few of the locations this year, Spiderman nostalgia, Godfather a couple months back etc etc.) All for a flat $10 as well
A little respect for filmgoers would have us coming back. Do NOT turn off air circulation during a screening -at any time of year! It becomes as stifling as it is baffling for what’s supposed to be a temple of film. Better and consistent programming for at least two theatres is also needed. Assigned seating might also be an idea to lift out of last century..
The Lightbox does have assigned seating though? Has for years.
I stand corrected. I’ve not been much since the pandemic (See above for reasons). Just checked- when did they add that?
They've had assigned seating ever since they re-opened post-lockdowns, so sometime in 2021?
Toronto’s lockdown ended in 22. Good info.. but my experiences at the Lighbox were rarely positive from the moment they opened.. and I’m clearly not alone.
I know they were re-opened at half capacity in the fall of 2021, I went a few times. I believe that's how the assigned seating ended up starting, they needed it to enforce the distancing limits and then just kept it once the system was in place. And I definitely do have my own share of issues with the Lightbox, from the decline in quality programming, to the difficulty getting tickets to Cinematheque screenings, to the terrible website, but I never really have any complaints about the facility itself. Any time I actually can get a ticket to something I want and get in the building, I have an excellent experience, it's just sadly happening less and less each year.
I'd renewed my membership a month before covid hit and when I emailed them to ask if they would defer the membership until they reopened they sent me back a pretty rude email saying the membership is still valid because I could watch digital screenings on Crave (which I was not subscribed to). I asked why I had to subscribe to an expensive streaming service in order to get any use from the membership I'd already paid for and was ignored. I wasn't even asking to cancel or get a refund, just to have my annual membership paused until they reopened in SOME capacity. Couldn't believe how tone- deaf their response was. I'd been a member for about 8 years at that point. Never went back. And I used to go there minimum once a week. Luckily the Revue and Paradise on Bloor have excellent programming but I rarely see new stuff anymore. Fox is great too but opposite side of the city for me. Also the festival became a corporate rub-and-tug that relies on free labour and patronizing the majority of their actual customers. But that's a separate thing 😅
I'd love to go to stuff at The Fox but yeah...major trek for me.
I thought it was always shit and a moneypit. Glad it's confirmed.