Taupō District Council event facilitator Whai Smith, BU Events owner Nicola de Lautour and the council's district venues manager Bryce Green prepare for movie nights at the Great Lake Centre. Photo / Dan Hutchinson
Taupō District Council event facilitator Whai Smith, BU Events owner Nicola de Lautour and the council's district venues manager Bryce Green prepare for movie nights at the Great Lake Centre. Photo / Dan Hutchinson
Taupō residents pining the loss of big screen movies will soon get some temporary relief from a pop-up cinema, with drive-in sessions a possibility.
Starlight Cinema owners Tammy and Charlie Prince have hinted on social media that progress on a new site was imminent but told the Taupō & Tūrangi Herald they were yet to finalise a lease.
Nicola de Lautour, local events planner and owner of BU Events, said her friends were talking about how much they missed the movies and having to drive to Rotorua for their big screen fix.
“I saw a community need really, or a want, and with my background in events I thought ‘can we bring something together to provide something in the interim?’
“I rang Starlight owners and wanted to get their permission and goodwill and got that and they were happy to see something come together at the moment and might even come along and make the popcorn for everyone.”
The popcorn machine was salvaged from the old cinema which is being demolished to make way for a new retail complex.
De Lautour was targeting Friday, September 13 for the first movie and planned movie sessions once or twice a month until January, with most movies screened at the Great Lake Centre.
The pop up cinema series would start off with “a nice family movie” de Lautour said, hopefully the animated children’s movie Inside Out 2, which was released in June.
“We will save the scary movies until Halloween.”
She said there had been a lot of interest from mums and their children but teens and adults would be catered for too.
“It’s really important that we do some teenage ones because I think our teenagers are really missing a cinema in town and so there will certainly be some teenage and adult ones.
“Halloween will certainly be a later night and for teenagers and adults only and there will be others that will be focused with them in mind.”
Peter Smith, owner of Starlight Cinema Taupō for 43 years (centre) with new owners Tammy Prince (left) and Charlie Prince (right) in May 2022. Photo / Supplied
She said no movies had been confirmed yet and they could not show new release movies straight away.
“I would like it to be movies that have been released this year for people to see movies they haven’t been able to see yet but for Halloween it will probably be a scary classic.”
She was hopeful of doing drive-in movies but had to find a venue.
“It has to be somewhere, where if you are selling tickets to it, people can’t just drive into it anywhere, so if you did it at Riverside Park amphitheatre it is too open.
“Somewhere like the gliding club or the [Taupō] Motorsport Park where they have got one entry in and one entry out.”
She also wanted some proceeds from each movie to go to charity.
“I want to keep ticket prices really affordable for families. I think there is a lot of people struggling at the moment so to give them an experience of joy and fun is one thing.
“To do it at an affordable price is definitely what I want to do as well and work with a charity on each one as well.”
De Lautour said it hadn’t exactly been a childhood dream to run a cinema and she was learning along the way.
“Hopefully it has some similarities with running events which I have been doing for 20 plus years.”
The Great Lake Centre was well set up to host movies, with a large screen and tiered seating.
