A Steve Martin-Martin Short show at Peace Center Concert Hall became a Netflix special. (Getty Images)
Venues in the Southeast are finding a somewhat unexpected windfall from the film and television industries, entertainment forms that are often competitors to live experiences.
That’s because the area has attracted productions in the past few years thanks to a variety of factors: generous incentives, versatile locations, creation of new studios, and the lack of unions in the states.
In fact, Georgia overtook California as the leading state for feature film production in 2016 and kept the spot in 2017. TV and other smaller productions are proliferating as well. This work has translated into “found” revenue for some theaters.
“We can lease out dark days to the film industry and it’s been very lucrative for us. It’s generated some income that we’ve never been able to take advantage of before,” said Allan Vella, president and CEO of the historic Fox Theatre in Atlanta, which is actually a former cinema that was part of William Fox’s nationwide chain of movie palaces.
Vella said it’s been easy to work with productions to fill in gaps on the calendar: “Oftentimes they want to shoot in the building or the exterior and they frequently request dates within 30 days — and in a 30-day window we know exactly what we’ll have available. It’s a segment of the business that fits in well with our schedule, and they’re very respectful of the building and they pay their bills.”
The Fox Theatre is not alone among Atlanta venues on screen. The 108-year-old Tabernacle in Olympic Park has also taken star turns in films, as has the Music Midtown festival.
No Laughing Matter
It’s not just Hollywood and traditional small-screen productions. Digital content producers are booking venues in the area, including live shows. And they’re looking outside the capitals for unique locations.
The highlight of the past year was taping the performance for the show “Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life” for Netflix, recalled Megan Riegel, president and CEO of the Peace Center Concert Hall in Greenville, S.C. “It was a weeklong effort. (‘Saturday Night Live’ creator) Lorne Michaels was in the building. It was remarkable, and now it’s memorialized in the Netflix special.”
This wasn’t the Peace Center’s debut, however, as it has hosted televised presidential debates for both parties, including the Republicans in 2016.
While the high-profile shoots are memorable, Riegel is not looking for the Peace Center to be featured more often in productions, but she wants to feature more films at the venue.
“We’ve got a bunch of real estate here to develop over the next 10 years. I’d like to (build) a theater to show films. We do the Oscar (nominated) shorts every year, and I’d love to be doing film festivals at some point when we get the right facilities.”