Toronto Festival Tower and tiff Bell Lightbox | 156.96m | 42s | Daniels | KPMB

interchange42 said:
They need to be able to fill the cinemas on a regular basis though: TIFF would not want to end up with an expensive white elephant. In any case, 600 isn't that small; the Varsity 8, that complex's largest, holds 580, and it feels big enough for parties.
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Yes, I see that point, and I agree with others that the festival is more interesting when it is spread out over a few 'nodes' (Yorkville, Yonge/Dundas, Festival Centre/RTH), but I still find it hard to believe they'd go to all this expense to build a 'centre' for the festival and not build a cinema that can accommodates even reasonable sized galas. The Palais des Festivals in Cannes has several cinemas the largest of which seats 2,400 (from the city of Cannes official web site):

Today the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès thus consists of two main areas: Firstly, the Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière, which seats 2 400; here, audiences are able to watch screenings of feature-length films in the Official Competition. Unlike in the old Palais, the stalls are reserved for the most prestigious guests, while the public are seated up in the gallery.
Next is the Théâtre Claude Debussy, which seats 1 000; here is where screenings in the Un Certain Regard selection take place. The Palais also houses numerous other film theatres, reception rooms which seat 3 000, 12 auditoriums, a conference room, a press room, TV and radio studios, an exhibition hall and a 100-space car park.

Would it not have been possible to design a space that could have been configured into different sized venues?
 
Why bother with all the extra expense of building a convertible space if you have Roy Thomson Hall just down the road though? Or another 1,000-seater when the Elgin and the Winter Garden are available during the festival? Those venues are beautiful, and couldn't be replicated today, and should be used whenever possible.

I don't know what other auditoriums there are in Cannes besides its festival's own, and I don't have time to research it at the moment, but as a much, much smaller city than Toronto, I can imagine that the Cannes Festival had to build a significant number of their own venues.

42
 
True about Cannes, no doubt, but the Palais ends up having such a high profile because it is where the films are being screened and where all the 'stars' are arriving etc. I just wonder how 'central' the Bell Lightbox will feel as a festival centre when most of the media attention will likely continue to be focused on the large high-profile screenings at RTH and the Elgin. Will the Lightbox cinema(s) be any more high profile than the AMC in real terms as far the media and mass public is concerned?
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Why build a new large, single theatre venue? I am sure Sony Centre can be modified for the task if need be.

AoD
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In fact it was, but I don't believe it was for TIFF. Abel Gance's 4-hour, 3-projector masterpiece "Napoléon" played there back when I think it was still The O'Keefe Centre
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Why build a new large, single theatre venue? I am sure Sony Centre can be modified for the task if need be.

AoD
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Perhaps, but a few successful long-running shows happening in Toronto at the same time and stage space becomes fairly limited fast, theoretically at least.

I understand the cost-saving imperative here but it still seems to me a little like going to all the expense and trouble to build the Four Seasons Centre with only a tiny performance space and directing people to the Sony Centre for the main productions.
 
Not sure if the analogy holds - the COC only needs one performance hall and were delighted to move from a barn seating 3,200 to a more intimate space seating 2,000. The Four Seasons Centre also has an entirely different set of requirements from this place. Another of Jack's great performing arts buildings - Sidney Harman Hall in Washington - might be a better analogy: the theatre's artistic director calls it, "the most flexible theatre in the world" and it can be reconfigured from a proscenium theatre, to an arena, or a thrust stage as the need arises. I think the film centre, because it has more complex requirements as far as multiple user-groups and simultaneous events are concerned, was wise to build a series of smaller venues to serve those needs. I don't think there's a shortage of larger spaces, within easy access, for them to use now and then as the need arises.
 
Another fairly new large hall that is hoping to attract some TIFF screenings is the Royal Conservatory's Koerner Hall, opening this fall presumably. That place will feature 1,140 seats (although some of those may be choir seating behind and above the stage). Still, there's another 1,000 seat hall in town that will be looking for an audience whenever it can get one.

There are several auditoriums in the city of varying sizes that sit empty many nights of the year. If another large venue were needed near the festival's King Street area, they could probably use the John Bassett Theatre at the Convention Centre. It has 1,330 seats. The similarly sized Winter Garden above the Elgin is only used a few times during TIFF, while the larger Elgin is not used in every potential time slot (every evening it is used twice though). The Elgin does not show anything else during TIFF though - I image TIFFg has it booked for years in advance - and if any long-running show were to open at the Elgin, they might have to consider a hiatus during TIFF. It has been a long time since something long-running went into the Elgin however.

My point is that there are lots of venues to hold the largest screenings currently at TIFF, and also, oh yeah, I have one other point, namely that a 600 seat cinema in nothing to sneeze at. All you really want at the festival is a full auditorium with an eager audience and an excited programmer and a proud director and a couple of stars, it doesn't really matter how many seats are in the room.

42
 
In fact, TIFF at the Elgin has prevented a few long running shows over the years from being booked into there.
 
I don't see how TIFF would "prevent" long-running shows from being booked. As already indicated, you would simply have such shows take a hiatus for ten or twelve days, which the cast and crew might actually appreciate. I certainly don't speak on behalf of the Elgin, but I'm guessing that they are more than happy to have a traffic generator like TIFF booked every year.
 
I'm only reporting what I heard first hand from someone who has worked there for many years.
 
hey all. i took a pic of the bell lightbox from a pretty good vantage..my office window but can't figure out how to get it from "my pictures" to post.
anyone who can let me know how to do this? i would appreciate. i know. i am a luddite.
 
lawsond said:
hey all. i took a pic of the bell lightbox from a pretty good vantage..my office window but can't figure out how to get it from "my pictures" to post.
anyone who can let me know how to do this? i would appreciate. i know. i am a luddite.
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You need to upload the picture to an online image hosting site, and then link it from there. Try http://www.flickr.com/
 
lawsond said:
hey all. i took a pic of the bell lightbox from a pretty good vantage..my office window but can't figure out how to get it from "my pictures" to post.
anyone who can let me know how to do this? i would appreciate. i know. i am a luddite.
Click to expand...

Windows Live Photos offers 25 gb of free photo storage...

just go to http://photos.live.com
Log in with your Windows Live ID, or sign up for one if you don't have one.

Then just upload photos! Take the link from the photo, and then when you are making a reply here, click on that button above the reply box that shows a little mountain in it. That's the image button. It will ask you to enter in the URL for the image you want to post. Enter it and there you go.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Another of Jack's great performing arts buildings - Sidney Harman Hall in Washington - might be a better analogy: the theatre's artistic director calls it, "the most flexible theatre in the world" and it can be reconfigured from a proscenium theatre, to an arena, or a thrust stage as the need arises.
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Isn't the Yonge Centre a bit like that too? I haven't been there for a while but I seem to recall its performing spaces being fairly flexible? Would this really add a great deal of expense to a design or is this merely a matter of good design in a building that has to function to meet different needs? It may be moot and simply not possible at the Lightbox, fair enough, but it just seems to me that it would have been important to have had some select 'big' galas actually at the centre itself, with others spread between RTH, the Elgin and some other big houses. No big deal. The centre will still be a nice addition and I look forward to attending.
 
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