Campaign aims to bring summer outdoor movies to Adams Park

The City of Tecumseh’s first crowdfunding campaign hopes to raise $15,000 from investors in an effort to snag a matching grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to bring outdoor movies to Adams Park in downtown Tecumseh this summer. “This is a new endeavor for us,” said Tecumseh Economic Development Director Paula Holtz, adding that this is the city’s first crowdfunding campaign. “We’d like to create more evening events downtown.”Holtz cited the success of Music in the Park as one of several successful downtown events the city offers that launched the movies in the park idea. The campaign starts April 1 and will run for 30 days. If successful, the campaign will allow the city to purchase a movie projector, sound system, 20-foot inflatable screen, vending offerings and movie rights. “We’ve had movies in the park a while ago and people loved it,” said Holtz. Then, an outside company came in to offer the movies and simply became budget prohibitive, she added. The projection equipment, which includes the sound system, projector and inflatable screen, will cost about $20,000. Vending equipment will cost about $2,800 while movie rights are expected to cost $4,600 — which will allow the city to show six movies a year for two years. Each movie costs between $250 and $450 to rent.The grant commitment for movies in the park is for two years, which Holtz said the city would continue afterwards. The crowdfunding campaign will be conducted through Patronicity.com. According to the website, Patronicity.com is “a localized crowdfunding platform that enables anybody to make a difference in their community by supporting local businesses, organizations and events, while simultaneously rewarding them for doing so.”Holtz said Patronicity was recommended by the MEDC and that the website has been very helpful to the city. Those who do invest in the campaign will receive rewards, which could include free popcorn, a travel mug with a free beverage, a movie credit, a director’s chair with the investor’s name and other reward offerings. Movie screenings should start in June, said Holtz, adding that if the $15,000 isn’t raised, the money would be returned to investors. “We’re looking forward to showing movies downtown,” said Holtz.