AMC Interchange 30
On May 7th, 1999 AMC Entertainment Holdings Incorporated opened a brand new movie theatre in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada, it would be called AMC Interchange 30. The theatre would be the largest multiplex in Canada with 30 separate auditoriums of different sizes. It had three different concession stands, the main one right inside the front doors as well as one in each of the theatre wings. It also boasted stadium seating with movable armrests and Sony Dynamic Digital Sound. They planned a grand opening with prizes to be won by buying a specially priced medium bag of popcorn and peeling off the sticker on the bag, some of those prizes were a minivan, vacations and movie tickets.
It wasn’t long before this theatre began to run into trouble, as early as 2010 reviewers had mentioned that the theatre is rarely near capacity and there were reports that AMC had closed half (or more) of the auditoriums in the building.
Then in May 2012, AMC Theatres was acquired by the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, for $2.6 billion. This deal was finalised on September 4th, 2012.
AMC had 8 theatres in Canada and in July 2012 four of those locations were sold to Cineplex Entertainment, two to Empire Theatres and the remaining two (one of which was the Interchange 30) still needed buyers. The theatre would later close permanently two years later May 8th, 2014 after being open for only 15 years!! It was speculated that the nearby Colossus theatre owned by Cineplex entertainment played a large part in AMC’s decline, since Cineplex would receive movies as soon as they were released but AMC was only receiving the second run films.
The theatre sat for 7 years before the current demolition began, it is ongoing and will wrap up in the near future.
We arrived at the theatre and I began filming right away because at this time of year the days are very short. As I was filming, I realised that some things were missing and the location appeared to be far more damaged than my brief visit a few days earlier. Shortly after I finished the video and had begun to take photos, the first of the kids began to show up, it started with a few smaller groups of 2-3 people some of which started breaking things. One of such groups was breaking glass and throwing things around for at least a good half hour. As the day progressed, more and more groups of people started to show up, at one point there were at least 20-30 people in there. Throughout my visit I estimate that there must have been over a hundred people at this one location, which to be honest is unheard of, in a normal YEAR, I would maybe run into a handful of people while exploring, half of whom I know. I spoke to a few of the groups and they all said the same thing, that they saw a video on TikTok and that’s why they were here. Apparently, the video that was posted to the social media site went viral and then some people started naming it in the comments which set off this rush of vandals and phone photographers to see the location for themselves.
This is why I normally don’t share location information with people other than who I know, trust and have a good reputation in this hobby. But for this location, since it is likely half gone by now and because I wanted to include some history about the theatre, I decided to break my own rules and make an exception this time. The takeaway from all of this though is that social media is a very powerful tool and I personally believe it comes with some responsibility in the form of protecting sensitive locations, such as abandoned buildings.
Follow me:
/ james.hackland
/ 0staticspaces0
Intro music:
Michett - Flatline
/ michett
CC BY: creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: freemusicarchive.org/
Other music:
Just Dance - Patrick Patrikios
/ @patrickpatrikios2050
25 окт 2021
