Be Ingenious

It's been easy to focus on what has been cancelled, shut down, and prohibited in this season.  To think of all the things we can no longer do, places we can no longer go, things we can no longer buy.  To view so much as non-essential and really re-evaluate what is essential.

For non-essential businesses especially, it can be very easy to focus on the negative.  The worries, the frustrations, the hurts.  

Every once and a while, though, you find one that gets ingenious.

In Brownsburg, we get a weekly paper in the mailbox, containing local news and interests, etc.  It's been fun to get to know the community and learn as much as possible in a time when it's hard to get out there and actually do so.  One column they have is on local food recommendations.  Now it has turned into where to get takeout from.  

What we discovered this past weekend was the Royal Theater in Danville, IN.

Here is a business in an industry that has been hit particularly hard.  Not allowed to be open, no new films coming out, no one able to go to the theater to watch.  And yet, this theater had a great spark of an idea.

This theater took its non-essential business and focused on what it could do in an essential time - sell food.

For several nights a week, the theater has been open to sell take out concessions.  Popcorn, drinks, candy.  Whatever you would need to make a home movie night a little more like a theater experience.  You can purchase outside or inside and pick it up to take home (or just enjoy in the car).

They are promoting it on their Facebook page and suggesting movies to watch, connecting with things like the Lionsgate movie of the week on Youtube.  Really engaging their customer base.

It was something that caught our eye, and captured our attention, so of course we went and got some for our Lord of the Rings marathon this past weekend.  And we'll be going back this week.  

It's an ingenious bit of business, making an opportunity when there seems to be none.  Moving from non-essential to essential by their particular business focus.  They are even selling cloth masks in the lobby (got a couple of those for the kids as well).

This is an example of how we get through this kind of crisis.  How businesses, how churches, how individuals get through seasons of great change - by adapting and changing with them.

Hopefully, as things are starting to open back up, and as they will not be immediately springing back to normal as we might hope, we can see more of this type of ingenuity out there.

More on this tomorrow...