It's “more than just a movie theater.”
That’s how the Nickelodeon — or simply, the Nick — describes itself. The Nick has come a long way since it was founded in 1979 by Carl Davis and Linda O’Connor, both USC students at the time. It started out as a place where cinephiles could come view and talk about films, staffed entirely by volunteers. Today, the Nick shows independent films and specialized screenings, boasts its own film festival and supports local media-literacy programs.
The Nickelodeon is South Carolina’s only non-profit art house theater. Its relocation in 2012 from 937 Main St. to 1607 Main St. completely revived Columbia’s Main Street, where it now attracts over 35,000 visitors to the area annually. The Nick is a cultural oasis in Columbia, but its single 100-seat theater put a constraint on an otherwise limitless creative powerhouse.
That constraint was lifted in April 2015.
The BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Theater, along with more employee offices, was finally completed April 14, 2015. Located on the second floor of The Nickelodeon, this second theater has been in the works for years, according to Executive Director Andy Smith.
“In some ways, we’ve been working for a decade at the Nickelodeon to get to this point. It’s exciting to know that with this theater opening, we’ll be able to fully realize our goal of being more than just a movie theater," Smith said. "With even more media literacy education opportunities and more room to screen first-run films, we’ll also be able to delve deeper into more programming that you just won’t find elsewhere.”
The Nick already does a lot for Columbia's arts community, giving people a place to gather, learn and discuss. The second theater now allows for more discussion-based screenings, and it lets the Nick run successful films longer — before, films generally ran for two weeks or less. The Nick has seen remarkable growth in the past ten years — over 42,000 patrons visited the Nick in 2014 — and the addition of a second theater aimed to continue that trend.
"Peer theaters to the Nick see an average attendance increase of over 100 percent when they add an additional screen, which will increase our revenue and budget, and effectively make a dramatic impact on the kinds of additional programming we can offer," Smith said. "The use of this second screen means that attendance at the Nick next year should double to 80,000. And because every person that comes to the Nick spends an average of $30 downtown before or after seeing a film, the increased attendance means that the Nick should cause an economic impact of nearly $2.5 million in direct spending for the Nick’s neighbors on Main Street."
The renovations helped not only the Nick's community, but South Carolina as a whole — the second-floor offices create more space for the Helen Hill Media Education Center, the Nick's educational outreach program. The Helen Hill Center gives budding film and media artists the skills they need to create their art. The program includes field trips, after-school classes and summer camps that teach kids how to use film equipment and become versed in the filmmaking vocabulary.
"We're working to foster the skills necessary to be an active citizen in our increasingly media-heavy society," Smith said. "Having more space inside the Nickelodeon will give the Helen Hill Center room to grow."
Expansion inspired by the second theater was employed in the year's Indie Grits festival — the film, music, media and tech festival created by the Nick in 2007. For the first time, Indie Grits had a theme — "Future Perfect" — and included visual arts as a part of the festival. The festival, which began April 15 and ended April 19, 2015, had multiple screens showing films at all times to provide as much exposure to southeastern filmmakers as possible. This was the first year the Nick screened all the films in-house, in addition to the Mini-Cine, a storage unit they repurposed into a miniature movie theater for the festival.
"For years we've had to screen Indie Grits films at other locations in addition to the Nick," Smith said. "We've really enjoyed and appreciated being able to use nearby facilities like Tapp's Arts Center for screening films, but we're excited to see how screening all films at the Nick changes the feel of the festival. We have the equipment and sound and screening technology to really show films in the best possible manner, and it's nice to have all of the films under one roof."
It was important to the Nick to maintain the decor of the Fox Theatre — the original theater of 1607 Main St. — in their upstairs renovations. Built in the 1960s, the Fox Theatre building is Columbia's only remaining arthouse theater, many of which used to populate Main Street. Preserving its red velvet curtains and art deco elements was essential in keeping with the original reason the Nickelodeon was created: a love of the past and a love of the movies.
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