Festival Cinemas gets a new life
By Rodger L. Hardy
Deseret News, 18 October 2007
Summary:
In September 2007, Utah businessmen Brandy Whittingham and filmmaker Tyler Meason, founders of the Utah Family Film Festival, bought the University Mall Cinemas from Don Clifton and renamed them Festival Cinemas.
The new owners renovated and cleaned the interior, updated the marquee, steam cleaned and repaired seats in all four auditoriums. A new digital projector will allow the theater to host free showings of athletic games. One screen will be decidated to showing independent films, in partnership with the Salt Lake Film Society.
Whittingham and Meason saw that there was a market for family films in Orem when the 2007 Utah Family Film Festival attracted more than 5,000 people.
"Moviegoers can now continue to enjoy films in a refurbished, renovated and comfortable community setting with an inexpensive price." Measom said. "In addition to mainstream movies, we are going to provide the community with compelling, humorous and thought-provoking independent films that usually don't run in Utah County."