Backstage Rialto

As a city-owned entity, the Rialto is restricted by set budgets, and its "profits" are rolled into the city's general fund. To keep up with technical advances and to develop a wider variety of programming, Backstage Rialto must raise money that can be kept and used directly for the Rialto Theater.

Testimonials

It was easy to take the Rialto Theater for granted back in 1966 when I first came to Loveland. It sat right there in the heart of downtown where we did all our shopping, and where we enjoyed a constant stream of first-run movies. It had been there for decades, a cultural touchstone. But just a little more than ten years after my family arrived, national retail chains, big box stores, and multi-screen theaters had pushed traffic away from downtown, and the lights went out on 4th Street.

Another ten years and the visionary leadership of Felicia Harmon and the Downtown Development Authority had rallied tireless volunteers, donations, and grants and brought the Rialto back from its sad state of abandonment and disrepair. Since the Rialto's rebirth in 1997, the City of Loveland has funded basic infrastructure and a bare-bones management staff, but for the Rialto to truly shine, the "private" part of this exceptional public-private project has needed to grow.

That's where Backstage Rialto comes in. Since being founded as a 501(c)3 xx years ago, Backstage Rialto has upgraded projection and audio equipment, underwritten exceptional programming (think Vienna Boys Choir, xxx), launched such festive events as The Return of the Blob (an inside joke if you've lived here a while) (Heather, can you add some other detail here?). It has helped the Rialto draw an enthusiastic regional audience as well as giving Lovelanders exciting new reasons to come downtown. Being part of this ongoing community effort to support performance art and cinema especially tailored for our town-what a privilege.

Linda Ligon, Partner, Long Thread Media