Pittsburgh Movie Premiere

[UKyank]

The Pittsburgh premiere of Batman was at the Byham

Though all in all the SouthSide Works theater isnt that bad, it has a bit of a retro, art deco thing going on....... nothing spectacular, but at least cooler then many of the other multiplexes around

[Geeo]

Being the holiday season and a Saturday night, I'm sure Heinz Hall, the Benedum and the Byham are unavailable. Harris is too small. If the Warner were still a theater, that would have worked for a premiere. But these days, it's almost all bland cinder block multiplexes with acres and acres of free parking nationwide. At least the South Side Works theater has an urban feel.

[greg42]

Unless they've done something in the last couple years, the Byham is not suitable inside for such an event. Think peeling ceilings, that sort of thing. The interior is not redone the way Heinz and Benedum were. The Batman event was just a local thank-you premiere whereas this one is the real all-out event.

Either of the latter two would have worked well and would have been appropriate (both old movie houses originally after all), but then unlike a movie theater those venues are booked well in advance and at this time of year would have popular holiday programs going on with tickets already long sold. That is why it couldn't be arranged to have it there given the apparent lack of lead time in this choice. They would have had to set a date months ago to be able to set aside one of those buildings for the premiere, and it seems like this decision was made much more recently.

No matter. It's quite surprising that they would choose to do this here at all, so I can only see it as good (even though I don't generally care for Cruise and his associations). Although it would have been that much more effective to see them use one of the old movie houses, they did at least choose a venue that was in the city and the more urban one (technically Waterworks Cinemas is also in the city, but you know how much more suburban that would seem as well as much farther away from downtown). The South Side Works place is set up for movies, can be easily bought out with a few weeks' notice since the movies change that often anyway, etc. Yeah they might be able to rent the convention center or something like that, but I don't know that such a venue would be significantly better.