EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) -- Like many places, Micon Cinemas was forced to close their doors and furlough their employees when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
While movies have been a constant in American life for decades, many movie theaters remain on the sidelines before showing films again.
On March 17, Micon Cinemas shut down for the coronavirus pandemic.
"This is probably the first time in the movie industry's history that they've ever closed, from what I heard," explains Micon Cinemas Vice President Connie Olson. "I was talking with our booker, who gives us our movies, and when this all first came out he said don't worry theaters have never closed, they've always been open even during the Great Depression."
Micon has innovated, doing popcorn and pizza to go.
But still the mainstay of the theater, movies, is not happening yet.
The movie industry has announced that no new movies are going to be released until July 1 at the earliest as of right now.
"It is kind of hard for us to make the decisions based on somebody else, which in this case it's Hollywood and movies in general," said Olson.
When the statewide Safer at Home order was lifted in Wisconsin last week it opened the doors for businesses, like movie theaters, to reopen.
But Olson says it's going to take some time.
"We're not one of those where they can say 'oh we can open so we open right away or tomorrow'. We still have to order supplies, get our staff back. So it takes us a little longer time. So even when we do set a date we have to figure a week or two weeks up to that so we can get everything we need to actually open up the door," she said.
Among the precautions that are going to be taken at Micon once they start showing movies again include cleaning seats in between each movie and keeping that social distance in the theaters.
"Our software system is now supposedly capable of doing that so if your family of three purchased an online ticket you would be able to sit together, but then it's going to skip the necessary seating and not show that that seat is available in the future here to start with," explained Olson.
The hope at Micon is to start showing movies a couple of weeks before the new releases come in, just to get everybody back in the swing of it.
"I always just say see you at the movies, and this time I'm going to say see you at the movies soon," said Olson.
She says this time is particularly hard for Micon and many other theaters, because she says the summer season for movies begins the first weekend in May and runs through July.
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May 19, 2020 at 09:39AM
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Movie theaters wait to reopen - WEAU
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