Fresh Air Cinema employee, Sam, tears down the inflatable movie screen after the cancellation of Movie on the Coulees due to high winds, Sept. 26, 2020.
Two hundred and fifty cars were expected to attend the Movie on the Coulees last Saturday, but the wind had a different idea, cancelling this event for everyone.
Due to safety concerns involving winds upwards of 70 km/h and the inflatable movie screen, Lethbridge College announced the cancellation of the planned event. Lethbridge College alumni engagement made the final decision at 6:30 p.m. Saturday night leaving many moviegoers without a show an hour before it was scheduled to begin.
The free event was sold out within six hours of being announced, bringing in over 250 cars to Lethbridge College campus. Stephanie Savage, alumni engagement coordinator says typically around this time of the year the college hosts an event called Coulee Fest.
“Unfortunately, due to current situations we couldn’t have had that event and the drive-in allowed us to safely operate and give our alumni and our community members as well as our staff and students an opportunity to engage with one another.”
A partnership between Lethbridge College and Fresh Air Cinema was pre-existing allowing the college to host a drive-in type event. Fresh Air Cinema provided the screen for Coulee Fest last year.
Different organizations around Lethbridge such as New West Theatre and Enmax centre have been hosting drive-in events and Savage thought it would be an easy model to scale in a larger way for the college community.
The movie Goonies was chosen after multiple rounds of surveys and crowd sourcing. The gates were supposed to open at 7:30 p.m. and the movie was supposed to begin just after dark.
The college continued to monitor the wind speeds early in the evening before making a final decision to cancel it. Paula Burns, president and CEO of Lethbridge College took to Twitter moments after the cancellation was announced saying.
“Sorry we had to cancel this great event at Lethbridge College tonight, but [the] safety of everyone is [our] priority.”
West Wind Kettle Corn was ready to be set up down the street in the Lethbridge College Drive community church parking lot to provide movie-goers with snacks. With the cancellation of the event, they were unfortunately not able to make any revenue.
Lethbridge College alumni engagement is currently working on different opportunities for events throughout the winter season. However, a drive-in type limits itself based on the temperature and weather. With the high response from the community, Savage says selling out in a matter of hours was completely shocking.
“I didn’t know that many people would want to come to a little movie event especially one that’s not a new movie by any means. It was absolutely shocking to see the response we got from the community.”
Lethbridge College announced they are looking into options for planning a new event and ticket holders will be contacted as soon as new plans have been made. No official word if the next event will be a drive-in.