Seats arriving for new Santa Barbara International Film Festival theatres in downtown

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – They barely had the keys for a moment, and already work was underway by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) staff to get their newly leased property ready for movies.

SBIFF secured the lease after it became available when Metropolitan Theatres ended their relationship with the City of Santa Barbara property that owned the formerly-named, Fiesta Five.

It will now be the SBIFF Film Center and is part of a city parking lot structure.

The legal agreement was drawn up and presented to the Santa Barbara City Council by the SBIFF Executive Director, Roger Durling, and the city attorney's office at a recent meeting.

It was unanimously approved.

Managing Director, Sean Pratt, says he has been assessing what he found inside, and it wasn't much.

No screens. No speakers. No seats. The property was cleared out as expected by the previous tenant and it will be up to the SBIFF to create its look inside the five-plex. Projector systems are soon on the way too.

Overall the work will happen in two parts.

The first is immediate. That will be to get it operational and ready for showings on November 15.

That will continue into about Spring of 2025.

Then, the theatre will close for a state of the art upgrade similar to the highly touted Riviera Theatre with, what's been called, one of the best viewing experiences in the country.

920 seats have arrived and are being installed now. They were purchased, still in good shape, from closed theatres across the country.

It is a quick fix and some may stay in the long run, but that is going to be determined down the road.

"We've gotten that the community is really excited about this  and we are too. We have actually been thinking about this for about a decade," said Pratt. "We have seven different movie theatre seat styles so when you look some theatres have two, some are a bit old, some are a bit modern but again as we emphasize it will only be for the next few months then it will be  brand new seats."

The carpet has gone through a deep cleaning to restore its colorful and retro pattern, even though it is not from the 70's as it looks.

The exterior will stay the same for now, but it is expected to change after a design discussion for the marquee.

"It is rivaling film centers in New York City so you look at the size of  New York city and you look at Santa Barbara and it will rival  art houses that are on the same level," said Pratt.