The Hollister Downtown Association is looking for sponsors to cover the cost of an outdoor summer movie series in July. This year, the group is hoping to offer a Thursday evening family-friendly movie during the last three weeks of the month.
But Brenda Weatherly, the executive director of the HDA, said the program needs more sponsors before it is guaranteed to happen.
“We are hoping to do three weeks this year,” Weatherly said. “Worst-case scenario, we will do one.”
The cost per week to rent the inflatable screen and rights to the movies is $3,000.
“The economic times are affecting people’s ability to give and make it happen,” Weatherly said. “We are still trying to find the money and make it happen.”
She said the HDA will be paying for the summer movies solely with sponsorship and volunteers will help to put the show on.
The first year the HDA ran the Movies Under the Stars summer series, they hosted one outdoor movie a week for 14 weeks. It decided to cut the run down to the four Thursdays in July last summer, and Weatherly said the first year with the longer run helped them find what month had the best attendance.
Last year the event was moved to Dunne Park where it was funded in part by grants from the Community Foundation and the Youth Alliance, as part of its efforts to bring residents to the downtown park.
Weatherly said they haven’t decided whether to keep the movies at Dunne Park or move them to the grassy lot at Fourth and San Benito streets, where the series was held in previous years.
“At the park we had a lot of the families from the neighborhood come because it was very visible (to them,)” she said. “The 400 block (on San Benito Street) is much more visible and we set up during the day so people know it’s coming.”
Last year, the highest attendance was 933 people for “Despicable Me.”
“We got the higher numbers in the last three weeks,” Weatherly said.
If they are able to offer three weeks worth of Movies Under the Stars, Weatherly said they plan to show “Kung Fu Panda,” “Puss In Boots” and “Hugo.”
She said she checked for movies that did well at the box office and rated high with families.
“We are just trying to make it pencil out,” she said.
