The Movie Theater for Everyone: The Pix

 

The building for the Pix has been on and off since the 30s. It was originally a horse stable at first for a long time and then it was a flower shop in the 2000s. 

The Pix is a movie theater in downtown Albany. It is owned by Rod and Denise Bigner. They bought it in 2013 from Jeff and Robin Mexico. Rod was a pastor but that wasn't making a lot of money and they had been wanting to buy a movie theater for a while as they both really loved movies and the Oscars. They were originally looking for movie theaters in Oklahoma but then they saw that Jeff and Robin had put it up for sale in 2013 so they sold their house and bought the business. 

Parker Johnson has been working at the Pix for 3 years. He loves the community aspect of his job so much. He's been working there since before the pandemic started and has stuck around as his job means a lot to him. Parker loves seeing people come around to the theater and seeing families enjoy their time. At work, Parker and his coworkers will put on movies for fun when it's slow and they don't have any business. They will also have movie marathons with their coworkers and boss. Also, a fun fact is that they have frozen bananas on their menu because Rod and Denise love frozen bananas. 

Parker pouring some beer like he would normally on a shift.

The Pix has only one screen and usually only shows one movie at a time because of it. Whenever a new movie comes out, they will play it there for a certain amount of time. The Pix has a lot of food that is extremely affordable with affordable tickets as well. This is so families can come and enjoy their time together. 

Parker making popcorn for us as he tells us about the history of the Pix.

Parker Johnson is the main employee at the moment. There are 5 other employees that work there and that have been there for a while. And there are the seasonal employees as well. On a typical shift, Parker will open, make sure the tickets are ready, hand out food to customers, and a whole bunch of other things. He's also usually the guy in the kitchen and he makes pies between shifts. He basically does everything as he is the main employee for the moment with the other occasional employees coming in from time to time. 

Parker helping us with our order after asking him about what he does for a typical shift.

Employees get to watch whatever new movie comes out the morning before or a couple days before the movie actually goes out to the theaters for the rest of the public to watch. For actually playing movies in the theater, they have to make a commitment. You have to pick a movie that will do well and that the studio is going to let you play because studios won't let you play random movies. They have to choose the movie they want to play and lock it down for 3 weeks. The first two weeks, they know the movie will do well and will get a lot of business, and then for the third week, it's usually slower for business.

The Pix has the Oscars every year there and once a year, they get to play a free show for people to come and watch. 

Before the pandemic, the Pix had more couches and more areas for people to sit down, eat and just visit. During the pandemic, they had shut down for a bit and then opened again. Movies kept getting pushed back and there was a lot of separation between when they would play movies. It was on and off for a while and they had to wait it out. They didn't know if they were going to shut down. The Movie industry was also impacted a lot. The movie theaters were shut down and no one could come in and watch any movies because no one could be next to each other. However, the Pix is slowly coming back. They're playing movies now and their sitting area has two places where you can sit and talk.